


Riddles

by GettheSalt



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Gen, Mentions of past abuse, Past Skyeward, Road to Redemption fic, mentions of minor character death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-12
Updated: 2014-09-12
Packaged: 2018-02-17 03:07:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 16
Words: 26,484
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2294537
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GettheSalt/pseuds/GettheSalt
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Immediately following the events of little SHIELD's victory over John Garrett, the question is asked: broken, confused, and struggling to find their niche in a new world, what does the team do when their safe haven is sent a package that just so happens to be the man who betrayed them?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Prologue**

“ _I guess she kept some of it to herself.”_

Grant Ward has no illusions about whether or not Melinda May kept any of her feelings to herself during their little fight. He knows that he is lucky to have his life, what little it is worth. He can’t speak, and everything – absolutely everything – hurts. But, he’s lucky to have his life.

That’s the thought that occupies his mind as he’s ferried from the military transport vehicle, into the military hospital. There are guards on either side of him, not just a pair, but a group, two to a side. They’re smarter than the cops that tried to pick him up at the diner in Los Angeles, when Skye ousted him. Ward won’t be getting out of custody with a glass and a few well aimed punches this time.

He has nowhere to go, though. No direction to follow, no goal to achieve. He’s been set afloat in a world where, for the first time in his rational memory, no one is expecting things of him. No one has a duty for him to fulfill.

It’s terrifying.

That, in and of itself, humiliates him. He’s Grant Ward, and whether he was on the wrong side of not, he’s one of the best agents that S.H.I.E.L.D. had, ranking alongside a legend like Romanoff. He’s capable and deadly, and respected – at least, he was respected. There’s a certain level of expectation that comes upon you when the people around you are praising your abilities. Maybe he wouldn’t have been who he was without Garrett’s tutelage, but without Garrett’s tutelage, maybe he wouldn't be here, now.

_Here_ is a military hospital. Surprisingly enough, Coulson, or whoever is in charge of where he’s destined to go, decided not to throw him in a rank cell and throw away the key. Really, they easily could have. He won’t be of much use when it comes to taking down Hydra. Ward was never really one of the Hydra inner circle. He didn’t know anything but the name of Project Insight, he had never guessed that Jasper Sitwell was high ranking among the Hydra ranks inside S.H.I.E.L.D.; He never even considered himself Hydra. He wasn’t Hydra. He was in it, in everything, for John Garrett. He was there to help the man who had helped him. It wasn’t a vendetta, it wasn’t a long-standing cause. It was loyalty to one man.

Ward knows that Garrett knew that, and Garrett himself wasn’t ever a true believer. Ward is sure of that fact. Garrett was in it for what the organization with a much more questionable morality could do for his longevity, after the organization he’d nearly laid down his life for hadn’t seemed willing to return the favour.

That’s more than likely why he doesn’t know the things that Garrett would have known. He didn’t need to know, because while Garrett was pretending to be into the Hydra way of life, Ward himself was just a tool in the things that Garrett truly intended to accomplish.

And tools don’t need to be told what they’re being used for. This Grant knows.

The guards march him into the hospital through a side entrance – like even a military hospital is scared of bringing him in the front, and letting people see one of the number of S.H.I.E.L.D. betrayers. That’s what Grant is, now. Nothing more than a traitor on a long list of traitors who will be tried and locked up. He doesn’t have a leg to stand on to these people, and he knows that. He won’t speak up and say ‘But’, because no one will listen.

Coulson might have, once upon a time. Blinded by loyalty to the man who had dragged him up out of certain hell, though, Ward never gave him a chance. Even now, even if he could speak, he doesn’t know what he would do. He wouldn’t make excuses. There aren’t excuses to make. He did what he did, and he was fully aware. Was he doing those things for himself? No.

But he did do them.

Whatever punishment he receives will be well deserved, Grant thinks, now. Realizing the things he’s done, the dangers he’s inflicted, the damages he’s caused. Coulson’s team were all people that he was growing close to. He wasn’t supposed to get close to them, not the way that he did.

Grant’s direction had been to get himself taken into the fold. Get them to let him in. It wasn’t supposed to be him letting them in, but, in the end, he had. He let them in until they had vice grips on his heart and soul, until he found himself laying awake in his bunk at night, wondering and hoping at a world in which he’d never have to betray. A world in which they would never find the true clairvoyant, and Garrett’s goal would be achieved without Grant having to lose this team.

Maybe, if things had been different, he wouldn’t have had to revert. Maybe he wouldn’t have had to let Garrett pull the iron chains on his heart and soul, and pry the team’s grip off him. There would be no reason to claim that jumping out of the plane to save Jemma had been a ploy. Raina hadn’t been there, and neither had Garrett, and neither would ever know the details. Grant hadn’t jumped to make them trust him. ‘I had a parachute’ was bullshit, because he hadn’t known what he was doing when he jumped into the cargo bay. The anti-serum hadn’t been working when he’d been there before. There was no chance he could save the scientist, even if he’d caught her. She was running out of time before she’d ever opened the cargo bay.

But he’d still intended to jump after her, because the thing he wanted to do the most in that second was nothing more than protect her. He hadn’t even known from what, because he couldn’t stop the alien virus.

He’d still gone after her.

That had been his first indication that he was getting drawn in too far, he was falling too deep. He’d tried to convince himself otherwise, but at the end of the day, the lie he told Raina was still just that: a lie.

“Take him in there,” a doctor says when they troop by, nodding to a set of swinging doors. Grant frowns, not having expected to be treated this quickly. If anything, he had expected to be chained in a room to wait to be seen in a few days, maybe a few weeks.

Coulson must think he knows something, then. Must want him to be talking soon.

Ward snorts, making one of the guards glance at him, wary, brows drawn down in a distrustful look. He ignores him, cooperating as they march him into the room and lead him to the table where he supposes he’ll be examined. There isn’t much to be done for a shattered larynx, Grant knows that much. May will probably be rather pleased if the outcome is that he will never speak again. He’s just lucky he’s able to breathe for the most part. It’s a bit laborious, but it’s not entirely taxing. The air is coming, anyway.

It’s more than he deserves.

It’s more than Fitz got, and Fitz deserved better.

The doctor comes back into the room as the guards are cuffing his wrists and ankles to the table. He’s an older man, with steel grey hair and hard eyes. Grant wonders if he knows who he is, what he’s done. He wonders if this doctor is going to help, or if he’s going to give his shattered larynx the last push it needs to take away his breath.

He doesn’t care, though, not really.

“Administer.” The doctor says, and a nurse steps up to the side of the table, between the guards on that side, and, finding a vein, sticks the needle of a syringe in his arm, and pushes down the plunger.

Ward begins counting down from twenty, unsure what they’ve given him, but following by some strange habit he’s picked up along the line.

He doesn’t make it to three before his thoughts muddle and he blacks out.

 


	2. Simmons I

There is a lot of work to be done, but Jemma Simmons doesn’t know where to start.

She isn’t used to feeling lost at sea, adrift without an idea of where she should even start to do something, but it’s a feeling that she’s had since Fury’s team dropped her and Fitz here. He’s settled in one of the medically equipped rooms now, still in the hyperbaric chamber until they’re sure he’s acclimatized properly. Fury left them a full med team, and she had never been more thankful for anything in her life, except maybe the fact that Fitz is alive at all, and the fact that he was willing…

He would have died for her.

And right now, she’s in such a messy mental state that she can’t even hope to be of use to the med team as they take care of him, and work on him. She asks them questions that she doesn’t even think on before they pass her lips. What’s his pulse at, how does his heart sound, how’s his breathing, what brainwaves are they getting? The team indulges her without seeming put-upon, without sighing, or rolling their eyes, or seeming exasperated at all.

She’s grateful. She needs them. Fitz needs them.

And her team needs her. The rest of them arrived on the bus two days ago, and have been working at settling into the base. Jemma’s watched them, seen the way they keep looking at Billy Koenig on and off like they’re seeing a ghost. That, she understands. She’d done the same since being dropped off here.

In fact, there isn’t a thing that they are doing that she hasn’t been. She’s been helping move things from the bus, and she’s been working with Skye and Coulson and Triplett to assign everyone a room, a place to lay their heads. Still, she feels like she isn’t doing anything.

And maybe it’s because she isn’t doing anything for him.

She’s never felt this kind of helpless before. She saved his life, and this she knows, but she doesn’t care about the accolades and the back-pats that action garners her. Simmons isn’t the least bit interested at being praised for pulling him with her, for dragging his dead weight to the surface, and holding him up.

Leo Fitz had been ready to die for her, but she hadn’t been ready to let him do that, so she had simply refused. She still isn’t sure how she did it, where the strength came from. It may have been one of those freak things, like mothers who can lift cars when their children are in danger.

Again, Jemma isn’t interested in all that. Above everything, she wants to be able to help him, and help the team, but, as she once said as a S.H.I.E.L.D. med team wheeled Skye away from her and Coulson and into an operating room, she’s a mess.

“You want some company?”

Jemma jumped, having been lost in her thoughts as she went through the cupboards in the bus’ kitchen, removing things they could add to the stores at the base. They didn’t know how long they would be there, after all. May as well go through the plane’s stocks, ones that were closer to expiry, than decimate the ones that had a longer time to go before they’d need to be pitched, and replenished. She’d been so wrapped up in inspecting dates that she hadn’t heard Triplett come into the kitchen until he was standing just behind her.

“Triplett, ah, um,” Jemma waved a hand through the air, pulling a smile onto her face, pulling herself together. “Antoine.” The smile she finally gave him was genuine, and thankful. He’d been a rock for all of them through this, most especially herself, and Skye. He reminded her, in ways, of the man she’d thought Ward was, though he was different in his own, important ways.

Namely, he had yet to eject either herself, or anyone else from the plane.

That kind of bitterness was bad, but Simmons couldn’t seem to shake it, and, until such a time as she felt like being benevolent, she wouldn’t.

“Thank you,” she said, setting down a can on the kitchen counter. “Company… would be good.”

“Thought so,” Trip answered, opening the cupboards next to hers, and setting to work. He didn’t push her to talk, and she appreciated that. His commentary on the things he was pulling from the shelves was enough to keep her mind aside, and focused on things other than what state Fitz might be in when he woke up. Simmons suspected that might be part of his plan, and if he wasn’t commenting on it directly, she wouldn’t either.

They were walking down the cargo bay ramp when Coulson found them. He looked tired, but that wasn’t anything new, and Jemma wasn’t going to comment on it. They all looked tired, nowadays. There was a lot to get done, and none of it was really all that easy. Even the simplest things had heavy undertones; everything they were doing now was because Hydra had infiltrated S.H.I.E.L.D., from its inception. And Hydra had burst forth, and left them all trying to handle the gaping wound it had caused. And Coulson…

Maybe he had it the heaviest of all of them at the base. Not only was he fussing over Fitz – and fuss he did, even if he kept himself so composed from day to day – but he was also carrying the weight of what Director Fury had assigned to him.

Director Coulson was to rebuild S.H.I.E.L.D. Better than it had been before. The way it should have always been.

So soon after everything that had happened, Jemma couldn’t imagine trying to figure his way from the shambles they were standing in, to the multidivisional shadow organization they had been.

“Sir,” Jemma said with a small nod of her head, the box in her hands shifting as she stopped, acknowledging him. Beside her, Trip did the same, minus the ‘sir’.

“Jemma, Trip,” Coulson replied, giving each of them one of his patented smiles in return. Jemma had learned early on that Coulson was one of the best agents when it came to giving the agency smile. Look like you have a secret, but don’t look smug about it. Look like you know things, but don’t dare give away what those things could be. That he could manage it, given everything that had come in the last few days, was a testament to just how good he’d always been at his job.

“Jemma, could I borrow you in my office?” Coulson asked, reaching for the box in her hands. “We can drop this at the kitchen, and then go from there, maybe? I just wanted to have a quick chat with you.” The smile, again. “Nothing to worry about.”

Jemma nodded, taking a slow, deep breath. Coulson trusted her, and as much as he had infuriated her in the days leading up to the Hydra reveal, regarding Skye’s blood and the GH.325, she still respected him. She still trusted him. And she was still grateful to him, because no matter what, he hadn’t gotten on her case the last few days about how much she had not been herself.

She handed over the box and walked with the two men towards the base’s kitchen. This one, Billy Koenig had told them, was called the Playground. S.H.I.E.L.D. had strangely tongue-in-cheek names for their bases, and she might have laughed, another time, but not now. There was nothing all that playground-esque about this place, and so, mentally, she would keep referring to it as ‘the base’.

Coulson and Triplett set down the boxes of food from the Bus on the kitchen counter while she hovered by the door, sending a look down the hallway that, after a right, and two lefts, would lead to the medical wing where Fitz was being kept. It felt like she hadn’t looked in on him in forever, but, in reality, it cannot have been more than an hour. Besides, right now, she would just be getting in the way.

“I can start putting this stuff away,” Trip was offering, and Coulson nodded, tapping his fingers lightly on the steel countertop.

“I’ll send Jemma back your way once we’ve finished our discussion.” Coulson promised, and then walked towards Jemma, giving her a small, friendly wave forward, inviting her to lead the way. Looking up, she gave Trip one more grateful smile, that he returned with a smile of his own, and a wink, and then turned to head down the hallway. Coulson and Koenig’s offices were on the opposite side of the compound from the medical wing, and Jemma tried not to think about the steps she would have to take to make her way back to that side of the base once this talk was over. She needed to find other things to occupy her mind, and desperately.

The room that Coulson had chosen as his office, for the time being, wasn’t anything like his office on the Bus. Simmons suspected that was mostly because he hadn’t had the chance, or maybe not yet the heart, to try and decorate it the same as that one. There was no nostalgic pieces on the shelves, nothing to really place it as Coulson’s office. It made it seem cold and impersonal, something that the now-Director definitely wasn’t. At least, not in her experience.

“Have a seat, Jemma,” Coulson offered, going to the tall, thin refrigerator in the corner. “Did you want a drink? I’ve barely seen you all day, so you’re getting water, at least.”

If Skye was in the room right now, she probably would have said something to the effect of ‘thanks, dad’. All Jemma managed was a small smile and a quiet ‘thank you, sir’. No jokes, all professionalism, as we took the cool water bottle from him. She twisted the cap off while he took his seat, and took a long drink. Coulson had been right in assuming that she needed the drink. She was parched.

Settling in her seat, she waited for Coulson to talk. She had known that something like this had to be coming, for more than a day, now.

“Jemma…” he started, finally, gently, folding his hands on the desk. “Do you want to discuss what we might be looking at with Fitz, going forward?”

There is was. The fact was that she hadn’t opened up and talked about it, yet. Not really. The thoughts had been spinning around in her head for days, with no escape, no exit, no discussion of which to speak. Jemma had been find and able with that, it wasn’t a bother or a problem. When Fitz woke up, it would be him that she would discuss everything with. They’d have…

“I don’t know,” she said, quietly, not meeting Coulson’s eyes. “I honestly don’t know what we’re looking at with Fitz, because I don’t know if he’s going to…” She trailed off, swallowing around the lump in her throat, pressing her lips together, trying to force back the sob that was building in her chest. This was her best friend that they were talking about. The one person in the whole world she couldn’t live on without. Not as the same person, at least. And there was a very real chance that she might have to try to do it, because if Fitz didn’t wake up, they might have to make a call that she couldn’t even begin to imagine.

“Let’s not think about that for now,” Coulson interjected after a second. “He’s going to wake up, and when he does, what are we looking at, potentially?” When she met his eyes, she could see the intent there. Get her mind off the possibility of Fitz dying. Get her analyzing all the possible outcomes. It might not be easy, but it would be easier than imagining a world where she didn’t have Fitz by her side at all.

“We,” she began quietly, willing her voice to be firm. This delivery was too reminiscent of her autopsy of Eric Koenig. “We could be looking at a number of possibilities. Depending on how long he was without oxygen, truly, his brain could be impacted in a number of ways.” Coulson nodded. “Primarily, he could experience mild to severe memory loss. That could include basic facts like his name, age, birthplace, and occupation, or it could be selective.” She paused to take a shaky breath. She needed to power on through this. “It could affect his long term or short term memory.” Her lips pursed at the thought of Fitz forgetting how he had ended up where he was. At him forgetting who had dumped them in the ocean, forgetting what he’d said to her, and forgetting that he’d saved her life.

“The other possible outcomes of it are that it could lead Fitz to lose… Some of his intelligence. Or potentially any particularly skill. His arm was broken, and coma patients with broken limbs have been known to suffer some loss of motor skills. It could… there are endless possibilities, sir, and while he may wake up and be okay…”

Jemma took a slow, calming breath, her hands clenching together in her lap, the best way she could manage, in the moment, to stabilize herself. “He may wake up, and the Fitz we know and love won’t be there anymore.”


	3. Skye I

“What does Fury mean ‘You’ll know what to do’?” Skye asked, following Coulson down the hallway. “What kind of package is he sending us? No offense to the former Head Pirate of S.H.I.E.L.D., but the last package he gave you was tiny and not exactly on the nice side of cryptic.”

Coulson nodded, thinking to the cube sitting on his desk back in his office. “Fury has a way of doing things. You noticed this a week ago, I suspect.” He shot her a smile. “If he says I’ll know what to do, then I think I’ll figure it out. Eventually.”

Skye glanced at May, walking at her other side. The older woman gave her a slight smile, and a prominent roll of her eyes, evidence that she understood what Coulson was saying, and the way Fury operated, but that Coulson’s quick but present hesitation on the subject was typical.

“We aren’t planning on being anywhere any time soon,” May spoke up. “You’ll have time to work out what it is that Fury expects you to do with this package he’s sending your way.”

“Faith,” Coulson quipped. “It’s nice to hear it.” Koenig met them at the end of the corridor, smiling and waiting for them to stop. “Mind helping me get the receiving area ready, Billy?”

“Absolutely,” Koenig agreed, waving for Coulson to lead the way. “I’ve been looking for something to do. Agent Triplett will be joining us. He headed that way a little while ago” Koenig’s gaze fell on Skye. It was still weird looking at him, and trying not to see Eric Koenig. Especially in the last way she’d ever seen him. Dead, at Grant Ward’s hands. “Agent Simmons… might need some company.”

Skye nodded, jumping at the chance to see Simmons. She’d been doing her best to help everyone, because it kept her mind off of Ward. Off of the things he’d done to all of them, and done to her. It wasn’t at all something that she wanted to dwell on, and she wouldn’t give herself the chance. It’s why she’d sought out Coulson that morning, and stayed while he and May received the missive from Fury. Simmons hadn’t needed an audience while she was visiting Fitz that morning, but Skye couldn’t let her mind wander for very long.

They parted, Coulson and May going with Koenig to join Triplett in the receiving area. It was still housing a lot of the overflow from the Bus being unloaded. If they were going to be visited by another delivery team, there would need to be free space.

Skye’s boots tapped on the floor as she walked the well-known path to the medical wing. She’d been going by, at the very least, once a day, to see Fitz. There was never any change, and she was beginning to feel her hope wavering. She couldn’t let that happen, though, for her sake as much as Fitz and Simmons’ sakes both.

When she arrived at the room that they’d moved Fitz into, she found Jemma wasn’t alone. It wasn’t uncommon for any of them to join her while she held her vigils, and if it wasn’t one of them, like was the case now, it was one of the medical team. There were only six of them, and this one, a young man with sandy blonde hair, was by far Skye’s favourite. He had a strong Texan accent, but a good attitude, and somehow, he was a walking, talking well of hope and good vibes. He was exactly the person that Jemma needed by her side if it wasn’t one of them.

“Hey.” She greeted, raising a hand as she stepped up next to Fitz’s bed. It was weird to see him like this. Weird, and upsetting. Fitz was someone who was always full of life. Life and sass, piss and vinegar. Now, every time Skye saw him, it was in this same position. Still on his back, with his arms limp on the bed at his sides. He might as well be…

She wouldn’t think it.

“Hello, Skye,” Simmons said, looking up from where she was jotting down information from the machines hooked up to Fitz. Skye had never been able to make heads or tails of a lot of it, but she didn’t want to know a lot of it, either, unless it counted as positive, definitive proof that Fitz was coming out of this. “How are you doing?”

“Good,” Skye answered. “Hey, Matthias.”

The med agent smiled and waved. “Skye.” He got to his feet, gesturing to the door. “I can go, if you two want to talk?”

“No, actually,” Skye said, holding out a hand to stop him. “I want to take Jemma to eat. I have this sneaking suspicion she hasn’t yet today.” The biochemist looked over at her, a flash of guilt in her eyes. That was all the confirmation that Skye needed. “Can you keep an eye on Fitz for us?”

Matthias nodded, smiling knowingly and reaching for the tablet and chart that Simmons was holding. “I’ve got this. You go eat, Agent Simmons.”

Jemma handed the equipment in her hands over, moving around the bed to follow Skye from Fitz’s room, pausing only to squeeze his hand briefly. Then they were back into the hallway, the only sounds the taps of their shoes on the floor. It was odd, not to be able to walk along while Simmons talked. She had always been such a talkative person. First, with information, and then, as she’d gotten more and more confident in herself over the months they spent together, she’d just begun talking more, period.

Now, she was quiet Simmons, and Skye wasn’t a fan. Even if she understood.

“So. Crazy package coming in,” she started, breaking the silence. “Any thoughts?”

“What?” Jemma looked over at her, blinking for a second like she was getting back her bearings. “Oh. Um. I’m unsure…” she gave Skye a sheepish smile, passing her as she held the door to the kitchen open. “I wasn’t really asking any questions about it. I’ve been so caught up with…”

“I know,” Skye gave her a reassuring smile. “Believe me, no one blames you for not asking. You’ve had a lot on your mind. I was just thinking,” she moved over to the big refrigerator, the one she’d left her leftovers in. “You and I could talk about it, get your mind on something else for a while. Share some mac and cheese and hot dogs?” She held up the big container. “Just need to heat it up.”

Jemma was still, except for her hands. Her hands were wringing together, fingers twining, before she bit her lip, and nodded. When she spoke, her voice was heavy with emotion. “That… That sounds wonderful, Skye.”

~*~

“So, sir, be honest with me,” Trip said, pushing the last of the crates in the loading bay out of the way. There was no telling how much room they were going to need for whatever the package was, but Triplett had his suspicions. Mostly, those suspicions were that Coulson had suspicions of his own that he wasn’t letting on. “What do you think this thing is?”

Coulson looked over his way, smoothing down his suit jacket and rebuttoning it. May, next to him, pushed a hand back through her hair, and moved around both men, heading out into the hangar, supposedly to wait for the order to open the door. She’d already moved the Bus aside, taxied it out of the way of the big hangar doors that would allow the package to be received when the plane arrived from wherever it was coming from. Part of the issue with guessing what this package was, was the issue that they didn’t even know what kind of aircraft was going to be delivering it.

“Honestly?” Coulson started, watching May walk away. His voice was quiet, and level. “I don’t know.”

“Come on, now, sir,” Trip said, crossing his arms, and leaning against the receiving area door. “I know you’ve got to have some sort of idea.”

He hadn’t been around Coulson and his team long, but one of Trip’s abilities that he prided himself on was that he usually had a fairly good sense about someone. Garrett had been the exception. Ward, too. To an extent. The other agent had been his friend, bonding over training, and violence and espionage. He’d thought the guy was the guy he’d thought he was. The guy the team had thought he was. It sucked to be wrong.

But, on Coulson, he was pretty assured of his thinking. The man was intuitive, and he always tended to happen upon the truth of things, if not long before they came to reveal themselves, then just before. There were things that had escaped him, but those things had escaped them all. Now… Trip had a feeling Coulson had a hunch.

“I have a hunch,” Coulson admitted, after a moment of silence between them.

Bingo.

“Feel like sharing?” Trip asked. Not pushing, and not cocky, but wondering. He had hunches of his own. To hear someone else thinking them would give him peace of mind. To have someone else not thinking them would do the same. Make it seem less possible.

Because, were the package to turn out to be what his hunches thought, Trip wasn’t sure what he would do. How he would react.

How the rest of the team would react.

“I think you’re thinking the same thing as me,” Coulson answered, looking his way. “It would be like Fury to send us that kind of package. I thought about it, after everything. He, the Director—”

“—Ex-director, Director.”

Coulson smiled. “Anyway. There was something he said. That whether it was one man, or all of mankind, the belief that S.H.I.E.L.D. was founded on was that they were worth saving.” He looked up, meeting Trip’s eyes. “I can assume you can guess what part I’m hung up on.”

Trip nodded, pressing his lips together. “The one man part.”

“That’s the one,” Coulson agreed. “One man can be saved. He also mentioned things about saving men from themselves.”

“I feel, sir, that maybe there’s more to the story than what we saw, and maybe ex-Director Fury thinks the same.” Trip said, voicing the wonders that he’d had over the last few days. The things that had been turning over in his mind. In the minds of the others, too, he suspected. “If the package is what we’re thinking…”

“Then we need to figure out what’s more to the story.” Coulson agreed. There was a loud, baritone buzz, then, and they both straightened, heading into the hangar to join May and Koenig. She flipped the controls on the hangar door panel, and he turned the key. Above them, the doors creaked and groaned to life, shuttling back against themselves, revealing a small plane, hovering itself into the space they created. Like a small version of the Bus.

“Small plane.” May commented.

“Yes.” Coulson agreed.

The four of them stayed put until the plane was landed, and the door on the side of the fuselage opened, a tall man with salt and pepper hair in an airforce uniform making his way down the stairs. “Director Coulson?”

Coulson stepped forward then, extending his hand. “That would be me.”

“Lieutenant-Colonel Epps. We’ve been instructed to deliver a package to you, sir. I trust you’re ready to receive it?” the man asked, glancing at the three behind Coulson. “Our mutual friend assured me you would have the required arrangements on hand.”

“Our mutual friend isn’t usually wrong,” Coulson agreed. “We’re ready to take the package.”

Epps nodded, turning back to the plane to call, “Bring him out.”

Trip felt his body tense at the words, and saw the same in Coulson and May. Their suspicions were right. The package was precisely what they had guessed, and now they were going to have to figure out what Fury wanted done. They were going to have to face him, and try to understand.

The man they brought out of the plane was cuffed, at the wrists, and around his ankles, and his eyes were covered. A man even taller than Epps had a grip on his upper arm, guiding him down the stairs, slowly. The last time Trip had seen him, he’d been in street clothes. Now, he was dressed head to toe in gray. Still covered in healing, mottled bruises. Face down, if his eyes had been uncovered, they'd directed at the concrete floor.

Trip took a careful breath. Just as he’d suspected, the package that Fury had sent them was Grant Ward.


	4. Team I

 Billy Koenig's office seemed a lot smaller with so many of them in it. Not that there were a lot of people in the room. Trip, Coulson and Koenig barely counted as a few, but the room felt packed. It probably had more to do with the high emotion in the room than anything to do with how many of them were there. And there was a lot of high emotion.

“So, what are we supposed to do with him?” Trip finally asked, breaking the silence as they had all sat and thought, individually. “Fury obviously had a plan, but, with all due respect, sirs, having Ward here, now, with Fitz still in a coma...” Trip shook his head. “I have very real concerns about how that's going to go over with certain people.”

“We could cut his throat,” Koenig said. There was a certain air of levity to his words, but, judging by the look Coulson shot him, Trip assumed there was a ring of truth to the man's words. Ward had killed his brother. Rather brutally, to be sure. It only made sense that he would have certain resentful feelings towards the former agent. The next words Koenig said, a light “Just kidding.” completed the idea that the joke wasn't such a joke, but a light comment.

“Fury said I would know what to do,” Coulson finally said, looking at a point somewhere on the wall, without really seeing it. “He said that I was being given this chance because I would know what to do. Remember what I said to you in the hangar?” he asked, looking at Triplett. The specialist nodded, crossing his arms.

“Something about saving a man from himself. That Fury said to you.”

Coulson nodded. “Exactly. I feel like... It's something Fitz once said. There's more to the story. There are things that we don't know, reasons that we didn't understand. As much as I don't want to have to try and understand what Ward has done...”

Silence descended in the office again, and Trip shifted where he stood. It wasn't uncomfortable silence, but it was the kind of silence that was waiting for someone to speak. In this case, waiting for someone to continue speaking.

“I've had too many people turn out not to be who I thought they were,” Coulson said. His voice was quiet, but heavy with the weight of the words he was saying. There was no blaming him, and there was no denying what he had said. They had all lost friends, allies, they had all had their lives turned over on them. “He was one of them. I don't know if I can forgive him yet.”

“I don't think...” Trip started, then caught himself in his answer. He hadn't meant to speak, but had begun responding without a second thought. “I don't think you need to forgive him, sir. Not yet. But I do think that Fury expects you to reach some kind of end with Ward.” He met his new superior officer's eyes. “Whatever that end may be.”

Coulson nodded again, looking to Koenig. The keeper of the playground looked especially stoic, quiet. He was sitting with his hands in his lap, clearly considering everything they were saying. It took another minute or two for him to speak. “I guess we're going to need somewhere to put him.”

The relief in his agreement, however unstated it was, was immediate for Trip and, he suspected, Coulson, too. There was no way for them to force Koenig to shelter the man who had killed his brother, and there was no easy way for them to take over the duties that were being handed to them. This, however, made things easier. It was easier to slip into a needed role or action when they could look to what Fury expected them to accomplish, and lay all the blame and responsibility for their choices on it.

“We'll need somewhere to hold him. Hold him where we can keep an eye on him and provide him with the basic amenities until such a time as we can achieve what it is Fury expects us to... achieve.”

Koenig got up with a simple nod of his own. “I'll see what I can set up.”

~*~

“Are we sure this is the right place to have this talk?” Skye asked, waving a hand at the sleeping man spread out in the bed next to them. “I mean, they say that you can hear the things going on around you when you're in a coma...”

“That's not necessarily scientific fact,” Simmons countered with a bare smile. “And besides.... I think that this is something that Fitz would want to know.”

Skye nodded, though she struggled to keep her eye roll to herself. Fitz would want to know that they were discussing this, and Fitz would try to argue with them. Fitz would argue that, somehow, Ward was still good, and there was more to this, and so on, and so forth. Though, given what Ward had done, maybe he wouldn't. Maybe, after almost dying, he would stop trying to defend someone who could not be defended.

“Anyway,” Skye continued, sitting down in one of the chairs, and looking to May. “What are we supposed to do with him? Fury sent him here for us to do... What? Stare at him? Throw rocks at him? There's no way we're going to just add him to the group and have movie nights and things like that. It's not going to happen, so what's the name of the game here?”

May sighed, only slightly, and took a seat of her own. “If Fury had intended for us to carry out some kind of execution order on Ward, there wouldn't have been a riddle attached to his arrival.”

May had a point. Skye may not have been a S.H.I.E.L.D. Agent for more than a few days, but she had understood certain things about the agency, and about the people who Coulson trusted. And the relationship that Coulson had with them. That included Fury, and the trust and faith that Coulson had in the man. Skye didn't think that the same man who came to FitzSimmons rescue, who had come to their rescue, would turn around and pass Coulson one of the people who had cut him so deep. Not, at least, to kill him. There was something else there, and, as much as Skye hated to admit it, she understood it. For a second, she wondered if Fitz had been on to something all along. Did Fury know something they didn't? Did Fury know something about Ward that explained why he had done what he did? Is that what they were supposed to be figuring out?

“I don't like this riddle,” Skye announced to the room at large.

May smiled gently. “I don't think any of us like this particular riddle.” She looked over at Fitz, and her smile slipped from her face. “The answer seems obvious enough, though.”

“It's working our way to it that's the issue,” Simmons finished. She wasn't looking at either of the other women in the room. Her gaze was fixed on Fitz, her hands holding one of his, keeping it warm between her palms. That had been one of her failsafes for the last few days. “Maybe we can see the answer, but I don't think the journey to it is going to be simple. Not at all.”

She finally looked away from Fitz, just for a moment, sharing a look with first May, and then Skye. “I don't know how I feel about this.”

“You don't have to be okay with it.” Skye's answer was quick, and blunt. She certainly wasn't okay with it. She, more than, she thought, any of them, wanted Ward gone. She didn't want him here, in this base, sharing their air, their heat, their food, their water. She wanted him rotting in a cell somewhere, alone, and barely surviving. It wasn't fair that he got a second chance. He was a murderer, a killer, he'd sided with an organization that had been sided with the Nazis. He didn't deserve his second chance. She wasn't okay with it. And Simmons didn't have to be either.

“In the next few weeks,” May spoke up, quiet, and soft. “We'll see what we can be okay with.”


	5. Ward I

 There were only a few places that Grant Ward could be.

Waking up had been a bitch. The bed they had left him on was much softer than the one he'd been in at the military hospital. It had been almost too much. What he wanted was to sleep, and sleep some more. Coming to had been an unpleasant shock, and something that had reminded him what he had done.

There were only a few places that he could be, and all of them were prison. Prison, prison, and prison again. It was no less than he deserved, for what he'd done, and the choices he'd made. After what he had done, the places he was waking up were narrowed to prison, and hell. Not mutually exclusive, but assured.

The last few days had been a lot of thought. There was nothing else to do. What he was allowed to do was think, eat and drink. There was no chance to speak, no way to talk. He could if he wanted. Try to go through the motions, at least. But the motions would amount to nothing, and, so far, no one was listening.

At least they'd taken the blindfold off. The thing had taken care of his sight, and his hearing. High tech and effective. It wasn't surprising that they'd saddled him with it. Couldn't have the prisoner knowing where he was going, or which agency he was being handed over to. He could be in anyone's hands, now.

Again, as a participant in a terrorist organization's infiltration of an agency meant to do good, it was probably less than he deserved.

Grant had never counted himself as Hydra. Not really. That was the truth of it, the one that he hadn't shared with Garrett, the one he never got the chance to impart with Coulson, to explain to Skye. Hydra had been Garrett's means to his end. And Ward, Ward was Garrett's right hand man, his tool. He was willing, and wanting, and he was everything that Garrett wanted him to be. He didn't want to be weak, and he didn't want to be worthless. He wasn't about to lay down and continue being his brother's pawn. His parents' pawn. He would make something of himself.

And make someone proud of him.

He hadn't achieved either end.

He had done what he had done for Garrett. He had signed himself up for John Garrett's cause, and he'd never trusted S.H.I.E.L.D. He had been the good soldier, and done the things he was asked by all superiors. He had seemed every bit the loyal agent, while, really, he had trusted not a single one of them, none but Garrett. And Garrett had told him not to trust even him.

How was he not supposed to trust John Garrett, though?

John Garrett had come into his life, and gave him a chance to be something other than the second son in a family where no one but the first son had mattered. He had given him freedom, and put him on the path to becoming a man. He had put Grant in a situation where he was destined to excel. The praise had been new, and he'd drank it up. The taunts, well, they were easier to take than being hit, and being made to inflict the punishment meant for him on his siblings.

It didn't mean it didn't make him want to try harder to be better. He wanted to make Garrett proud. He would make Garrett proud, he was sure of it.

He'd never turned down an order. He had always done his best to complete them at a level of perfection that would please Garrett. At times, he achieved it. What he never wanted was to make Garrett displeased. It had happened, from time to time, and he had never been surprised by the outcomes.

It was why he had tried so damn hard, when he'd been put on the team, to keep each and every one of them at bay. Sure, play the friend, play the subordinate, play the lover. Grant could do that, he could do all of it. He had spent his years in S.H.I.E.L.D. doing it over and over again. It would be nothing new to pretend that he liked these people, that he respected and enjoyed them. It would be easy to slide right in with them, and learn what Garrett needed him to learn.

Grant Ward could do it all, and he wouldn't be compromised at all, because there was no way he could ever trust or like one of Fury's closest lackeys, a living legend, and two bright-eyed science nerds. And when Coulson brought Skye in? She, especially, would not be a problem. Annoying and opinionated, and absolutely useless to their cause. Her time with them would be short-lived, he was sure. There were a few agents who he had, over the years, chosen to like. Antoine Triplett, for one. These people would not be among those ranks.

Except, at the end of the day, they were.

Like Buddy, he had ended up caring, he had ended up loving. He had gotten attached to the team, to every one of them. Maybe he had used the sex with May as a weapon, and maybe his attachment to Skye had taken a twisted turn. At the end of it all, though, even he couldn't keep up the lie. He cared, he cared about each and every one of them. It was a weakness, and he should have crushed it when he had the chance, and yet, he hadn't. He had barely even tried all that hard to deal with it.

Ward had cared about them, and that was why he had defied Garrett. In their shared time together, Grant had only twice defied him. He had only twice failed on purpose. But this time, this time he was sure that Garrett wouldn't know, he wouldn't find out. FitzSimmons would be abandoned, yes, but they would be together, floating in the med pod. The damn things were designed to adapt to their surroundings. The best part about his defiance is that he was technically complying with Garrett's order to 'put them down', and they would live through it. Hopefully with minimal bruising. Maybe they may never be the same with him, but, truthfully, things would never get the chance to be the same, anyway. He would be with Garrett, and they... They would do whatever the S.H.I.E.L.D. loyal would do.

He couldn't have left them on the Bus, anyway. Not with that many Hydra loyalists on board. Buddy had taught Grant one thing: if he didn't get the job done, if he defied an order, Garrett would make sure it got done. FitzSimmons would be killed if he let them stay in that pod, on the Bus. They had done him and themselves a favour by getting inside it.

In the end, though, Fitz still got hurt. Fitz...

There was something wrong, had been something wrong, but no one had told him what it was. Just that he may never be the same again. His spark and snark could be changed, his sharp intelligence could be altered.

Ward hadn't killed them, but he might have killed what made Fitz _Fitz_. In the end, his care for them hadn't protected them at all.

It took a long while for Ward to open his eyes. When he did, it didn't do him any good. He couldn't tell, any more, with his eyes open, what agency had him, or where he was. The room was four walls, the fourth a thick pane of glass. Plexiglass, probably. There was a door on one of the other, concrete walls. Steel, heavy, with what he imagined was a very complicated locking system. The glass wall had a section in it, presumably for food to be shuttled through. He was like an animal on display.

One who, judging by the approaching footsteps, would soon be entertaining visitors. Swinging his legs over the side of the bed, Ward got to his feet, hearing and feeling the pops and cracks in his joints. Moving slowly, he stepped towards the glass, swallowing around the pain in his throat, trying to see who was coming.

At least, then, he would know who was in possession of him now.

The hallway outside his cell was open and empty. There were two identical steel doors at either end, with small glass windows near the top. The footsteps he could hear coming were behind the one on the left hand side. Two sets, probably men, judging by the gaits. Not boots, dress shoes. Administrators, maybe. More than likely. Lawyers, maybe, coming to read him his rights, and inform him of the things he was allow to have. Those things would be very few, considering he was probably classified as a terrorist at this point.

So, when the door opened, and Coulson was the one who stepped through, he was shocked. Never, in his wildest dreams or nightmares, did he expect to wake up and find Coulson. Worse than that was the man who walked through the door behind him.

Heavier set, dark hair, suit and tie. He shouldn't have been up, walking and talking, and yet, there he was, walking down the hall behind Coulson, both of them with their eyes set on him at the glass. Maybe Ward reacted too hard, when he took a few big, quick steps back from the glass, but it couldn't be helped.

Maybe he _wasn't_ in prison. Maybe he _was_ in hell.

“Afternoon, Mr. Ward,” Koenig greeted him, without a smile. “Sorry, you seem a bit startled. My name's Billy. I believe you knew my brother? You did kill him, after all.”

The tension in Ward's shoulders lessened, only slightly. Not Eric Koenig. Billy Koenig. Different man, not the one he'd killed. It didn't help things, that this was his brother, but it didn't make the hell theory any more probable. It was better, in its own way.

For his part, though, Coulson wasn't speaking. Coulson was opening the outer door on the food compartment between them, and sliding in a tray that had been in his hand, without Ward's notice. Rations. And what looked like painkillers. He _was_ rather sore.

“Eat.” Coulson said. One word, staring at him through the glass. There was no warmth in his voice, none of the gentle nature that Ward knew he had in there. No fondness, and no care. The way he was looking Ward over now, too, didn't give away any of the man Grant had known. His former team leader pointed at the tray, more of a quick jab than anything else. Then he and Koenig turned, and left the same way they had come.

Ward waited until the door had shut behind them before he approached the tray. He had always been good at following orders.


	6. Simmons II

 She needed to be eating.

Simmons knew that she'd been spending all of her time at Fitz's bedside. The way she saw it, she didn't have any other choice. He needed her. He put himself on the line in order to save her life. Now, he was stuck in a way that she couldn't help. She couldn't even begin to fathom how to get him out of it, and get him out of it okay. Jemma was endlessly thankful to Fury, to his medical team, for saving them, and getting Fitz stable. The waiting game wasn't anything she was any good at, though. Watching him breathe, and sleep, day in and day out had started to take it's toll on her. She could feel it.

It's why she should have been eating, and that was what she'd intended. She had intended to go to the kitchen, to find food, and eat, for the first time all day. She hadn't intended to be following this path. She hadn't walked it before, but she knew where it would take her, and she was following it without hesitation.

She didn't want to be the first one of them to go down to see Ward. The first one after Coulson, that is. Still, Jemma didn't notice where her feet were leading her until she was already descending the stairs. By that point, there was no point in turning around. Her subconscious had made up its mind that it was going to take her to confront him now. It would have to be done, eventually.

Jemma just wished that there was more time to plan out what she was going to say. More than anything, she wanted her words to make an impact, and to hurt him. On an empty stomach, and with a headache coming on thanks to that and a clear lack of decent sleep, was not the most opportune cocktail to do this.

Pulling open the steel door that led to the hallway his cell was in, Simmons found she didn't care.

Ward's cell was the only one in the hallway. He was utterly confined, by himself, in his cell, in this hall, with its closed doors. In front of the glass wall was a chair. Intended for interrogations, but that wasn't Jemma's aim, here. She walked until she was standing in front of it, eyes trained on the floor in front of her. It wasn't going to be touching, once she raised her eyes, and even with them down, she could see Ward's feet. He was close to the glass. Not right against it, but close. Enough, that when she looked up, there was maybe six feet between them.

He looked like a wreck. His face and neck were bruised, still, his hair disheveled. He looked, every inch, the kind of man that had been hit by Hurricane Melinda and barely lived to tell about it.

Jemma Simmons was not the vindictive type. She had been shocked when Fitz had voiced an utter lack of concern for the danger that the Centipede soldiers were in. Now, though, standing in front of the man that had been her friend, she could feel it boiling up within her.

That? That was because now, looking at him, she was having trouble. Her mind was trying to remind her of who he had been – or who he had seemed to be. The man she had thought was her friend, the one who had helped her work through her fear of heights and fear of falling after she'd jumped from the plane. The one who had protected her, and Fitz, and Skye. He had made them feel safe; he had made her feel safe.

And all that time, he hadn't been the man she thought he was. He was this evil, murderous, traitorous Hydra mole.

He hadn't cared about them at all. He had made them believe he did, and he didn't care a single iota about any single one of them.

Looking at him now, she wondered if there was every anything about him that had been true, that hadn't been false. Looking at him now, and watching his eyebrows draw together, and his mouth turn down in a confused frown, she thought she – they – never knew him at all.

Simmons wanted to hit him, suddenly. In lieu of that, she wanted to hit the glass, and scream, and yell. Scare him the way they had been scared, watching him recede as the pod ejected from the Bus.

Instead, she kept her tone level, kept her anger contained, and commented, lightly, “Your eye's healed well.”

Ward didn't react. At least, not more than a tiny, imperceptible nod, one that she would have missed if she hadn't been watching him. Then he stepped back from the glass, and then another step, and one more, until he was sinking down onto the bed they'd given him.

That, more than anything, his backing away, and acting so cowed, was what broke her.

The next word that left her mouth was yelled; it was just on the edge of an angry scream. “Why?”

That got his attention. He tensed up on the bed, noticeably, and leaned away the smallest bit. Like the glass might not be enough to protect him from her. Jemma wished that was true.

“Why did you do it Ward? Why?” her voice was rising, gaining a shrill edge with every word. “Why did you make us believe you were our _friend_?! You weren't, you never were! You lied, all you ever did was lie!”

Simmons' vision was blurring at the edges with hot, angry tears. Maybe it would be unwise to cry, but she didn't care. She was angry, and she was hurt, and God, she wanted him to know it. If she couldn't rant and rail against him, she could rant and rail _at_ him.

“Why did you save me? Why did you-- ” she choked on her words, taking a deep breath. When she spoke again, she was quieter, but still yelling. Her voice was more controlled, but still angry. “Why did you make Fitz trust you? Why did you get him to let you in?”

Jemma raised her hands, rubbing her heels against her eyes angrily, taking a deep breath. “Why did you do this to us?” she asked, hands still covering her eyes. She took a breath, and then another. And one more, before her hands swung down again, balled into fists. “Why couldn't you have been the man I thought you were? Why couldn't you be that man? Why?!”

That word stayed on her lips. Stayed on her lips and in the air between them. On the other side of the glass, sitting on that bed, Ward looked down, at his hands, and didn't give any kind of response. That snapped something inside Jemma, and in the next second, she was pounding her fists on the plexiglass, and screaming 'why' at him. Again and again and again.

She didn't hear the door when it opened, didn't hear Coulson and May approaching rapidly. She was beyond helping, she was beyond quieting, and there was no way they hadn't heard her outside the hall. If Coulson had been watching Ward's cell on the video feed, there was no way they hadn't seen her start to get hysterical.

Even with Coulson's arm around her, leading her out of the hall, and May trying to get between her gaze and Ward, she didn't stop screaming. She didn't stop asking 'why'.

The last thing she saw of Ward was that his eyes were squeezed shut tight, and his hands were balled into fists, his defense against her screamed accusations.

Good.


	7. Triplett I

 Two days had passed since the thing that no one was talking about had happened, and Triplett wasn't about to be the first to bring it up. Jemma had been quieter since then, and that was saying something, since the girl had been pretty damn quiet before she'd gone and gotten hysterical at Ward. Trip wondered if it was partly because of shame for the way she had acted. Jemma Simmons, in the short time he had known her, was not the type of woman to go off the handle and start screaming and shouting at someone, to the point where she was banging on glass. Still, it had happened, and no one was talking about it, least of all her.

It hadn't been the easiest two days, either, but that was why he was doing what he was doing right now: namely, making the girl some waffles, because those two days spent not talking to anyone had always been spent barely eating. That was something that she needed to stop, in Trip's opinion. She was going to waste away at Fitz's bedside, and maybe he didn't know the guy, but he had a feeling that he wouldn't want to come to and see his best friend all starved at his bedside.

“I'm surprised I caught you,” Trip said, dishing out fresh waffles onto the plate in front of Simmons, and returning her smile. “I thought I was timing myself just right, so I'm glad that worked out.”

“I was just coming to grab some protein bars and a bottle of water,” she answered, looking down at the plate in front of her, and reaching for the syrup he'd set down while they were cooking. “Thank you, Trip.”

“No problem,” he said lightly, turning back to pour more batter in the waffle iron for himself. “I think that's a bit more sufficient than protein bars, huh?” When Jemma didn't reply, he turned to look at her, sighing softly. “I'm doing this as much for your benefit as for his, you know.”

At that, she looked startled, turning to look at him, eyebrows raised in confusion. “Pardon?”

“Fitz,” Trip answered. “Poor boy is probably enjoying the peace and quiet, without you in there, readin' all the mundane stuff from him out of the newspaper.” That got a laugh out of her, however small and quiet it was, and she smiled, fingers tapping slow against the tabletop.

“It's something, at least” she explained. “This way, when he wakes up, he won't be blindsided by something we all thought was mundane.” She looked up at him, and her smile stayed. “What if another monkey got loose in another IKEA? He'd want to know.”

Triplett chuckled. “Guy likes his monkeys, huh?”

“Loves them,” Simmons replied, her voice confident and informed. Stable. A way she hadn't sounded for a couple of days now. “When we were down in the pod, we discussed the theory of...”

Her trailing off was enough to alert Trip that a subject change needed to be achieved, and he sped ahead quickly, filling in the silence before she had too much time to brood. “You need anything else to go with those?” He gestured at her waffles. “Cousin of mine? Girl's crazy. She covers 'em in butter, and then pours the syrup over top. She says it makes them taste richer. I say it makes 'em taste like a heart attack waiting to happen.”

Jemma's laugh was quieter this time, more of a huff. She lifted her fork and knife, cutting into the waffles. “I'm fine with just the syrup. I'm sure they'll taste rich enough.”

Nodding, Trip turned back to his own breakfast, finishing it off and moving to join her at the table. No one else came in while they ate, and they ate in silence. No speaking, not even exchanged glances. Triplett was just happy to see Simmons eating an actual meal that wasn't comprised of protein, protein and more protein, and no flavour or variety.

“John Garrett was your S.O.”

The statement, if it was possible, would have punched Trip in the chest. He hadn't seen it coming, but he should have expected it. He had come to this team as a prodigy of John Garrett's, and he had turned out to be the Clairvoyant. He had expected these questions to come up a whole lot sooner than they were.

“Did he ever try to turn you?”

Setting down his fork, Trip shook his head. “No,” he looked at Jemma. “Never once.”

Simmons nodded, going quiet again for a moment, using her fork to push a small piece of waffle around in the syrup left on her plate. “What did he see in Ward, then?” she asked. Trip didn't think she expected him to answer. He hoped she didn't expect him to answer, because even he had no idea what the answer to that riddle was. “Was it evil? Was it really, truly, something dark, and cruel and just... just horrible? Is that what he saw? Is that what he nurtured, why he took Ward in, and had him join Hydra?” She sighed. “Because it's all I can think.”

A shrug was the only answer Triplett could muster. “I don't know. None of us know, really, what it is that Garrett saw in Ward that got him to join Hydra and follow the man.” He stood up, picking up his plate and holding his hand out for hers. “And none of us will ever know, because the man's gone now.”

Simmons handed him her plate, and stood herself. “That's not necessarily true,” she countered, quiet, gaze averted as she pushed in her chair and turned to go. “Someone knows.”

Watching her leave made up his mind. She had been the first of them, aside from Coulson and Koenig, to go down to that cell and face the man. Maybe it was his turn. He would go down, look Ward in the eye, and try to understand the person sitting on the other side of the plexiglass.

Once the dishes were washed, he did a quick walk of the complex. May and Coulson were in Coulson's new office. Discussing what, he didn't know, but would find out when the time was right. Simmons had arrived at Fitz's bedside for the day, and was fussing at Skye, who had joined her and put her feet up on the end of the engineer's bed.

“Fitz doesn't mind,” Skye was arguing as he passed. “If he was awake he would let me put my feet wherever I pleased.”

Koenig was in his own office. The other assorted former agents were milling around, doing whatever it is they were doing. It was an average, quiet morning. A good morning for him to spend some time with their package.

The trip downstairs felt heavy. It had to have something to do with what he was feeling, more than where he was going. Ward had always been an agent he respected. The guy was terse, and awkward, sometimes, when it came to socializing. He wasn't the open person that some agents could be. But he was the man you wanted to have your back going into a firefight. He was the guy who you could have a drink with after a bad day, and not have to worry about dealing with a sad or angry drunk. Just another person to drink and commiserate with, without words.

Looking back now, Trip wonders what the guy's words would have been, if he had been a talkative drunk.

The cell level of the Playground was cooler, and felt much more underground than the rest of the compound, which was saying a lot, because the whole thing was underground. It just had that cold, concrete feeling, which, Trip supposed, was the point. No reason to have prisoners feel comfortable and at home. That was the whole point of a cell block.

Ward's cell was away from the main block. Not because the others were occupied, but because it was one of the few that had an entry hallway all its own. It kept him that much more isolated. It was cold, but after what he'd done, that was what the man deserved.

The steel door swung open on its hinges easily, opening into the hallways with it's harsh lighting. It was a short walk down to hall, then, to Ward's cell, and the chair that still sat in front of it. Trip walked in and took a seat, leaned forward with his elbows on his knees, looking at the prisoner who he used to call an ally.

Ward's beard was growing in, and starting to cover the bruising that Trip could still make out along his jawline. The skin around his right eye was still angry looking, though it was more mottled yellow and green than black and blue. The cut on his lip was closing. His hair was a mess, which was a stark difference from the agent who had always been so put together, and he looked restless. That was to be expected, he was locked in a box. For someone who had been consistently active for years, those four walls where probably beginning to feel fairly unfriendly.

It took Ward a second to notice he was there. He was having breakfast of his own. Trip could take a guess at who brought it down, but obviously they didn't hang around. Certainly not long enough to collect the dishes, which Ward was getting up to put in the transfer compartment in the glass wall. He stopped for a second, giving Trip a wary look, and then came forward, sliding the tray into the compartment, and backing off. Backing off all the way until he was sitting down on his bed.

He was strangely docile.

That just didn't seem right.

For someone who had been the way that Grant Ward was – when he seemed like a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent, and when he was revealed to be otherwise – it didn't track. Ward had nothing to gain, now, by changing his tune, and being docile. It wouldn't make anyone forget what he'd done. It didn't mean that they were going to let him out. If anything, they'd kill him before they did that. Now, at this point in time, anyway.

It was that, more than anything, the way that Ward mimicked a dog with its tail between its legs, that convinced Trip there was more to the story that they were not seeing. There was something that he, and Coulson, and May, Koenig and Skye and Simmons missed; they weren't seeing the whole picture. They were only seeing Ward as a result of it.

Triplett looked down at his hands, and spent a few minutes like that. A few long minutes. While he did, Ward shifted, shuffled up and headed into the bathroom partition in the cell. Came back and took his seat on the bed again. Never made a move to get Trip's attention. Never made a move to be hostile, or jeering. He wasn't in the place to be, but, nevertheless, he didn't do it.

Trip was thankful for it, though it didn't make it any easier to figure out what he wanted to say.

“I'm not going to scream at you.”

That's what he settled on, and heard a huff that could be a laugh, but, when he looked up, Ward was doing no more than looking at him, expressionless for the time.

“She's not the only one who wants to know why, though,” he continued, not taking time to work out Ward's mind games, if that's what they were. “I do too. I think, Grant,” the man in the cell stiffened for a second at that. “That we all have a right to know where your head was at, and why you did what you did. It's not just that, though.” Trip straightened up in his seat, looking Ward in the eye while he spoke. “Fact is, the Grant Ward that I knew? The Grant Ward that this team thought they knew? That guy was a pretty good guy. I mean, no offense, man, but I don't think you're that good of an actor. That guy's gotta be in there somewhere, right?” Trip paused. “If he isn't, you're a better damn actor than we're giving you credit for.”

Ward didn't give any indication that he heard. Not at first. After a few seconds though, he shook his head, looked away from Trip like he was conceding a loss in some staring contest.

Unlike Simmons, when Trip continued his questions, he didn't scream. “How did you end up like this, man? I had breakfast with Jemma this morning, you know what she asked me?” He paused for a second, waiting for Ward to look at him again. “What did Garrett see in you that convinced him he needed to turn you over to his side. That's what she asked me. I told her, I don't know. I wish I knew, maybe I would understand you more. What I want to know though, man...” Trip leaned back, rubbing a hand over his head. “What did _you_ see in Garrett? What made you want to join up with him when you knew he was killin' the people who trusted him? Or, at least, stay joined up with him? How could you do what you did, for a guy like Garrett? Never mind Garrett,” Trip tapped the palm of his hand. “How could to do it for an organization like Hydra? I mean, man, I know you went to the academy. You know what Hydra was. I just don't get how you could do it. I know you can't answer me.”

He leaned back in the chair, shaking his head. “Not yet, anyway.” The silence in the hallway stretched for a while. Ward couldn't talk, and Trip wasn't talking. He was giving the other man the chance to think about the questions he'd already asked, before he started asking any new ones. Really, though, he only had one more left.

“How could you let this team get hurt?”

Eyes on Ward's face, it was hard to miss the brief flash on the man's face. Guilt? Regret? Trip could have sworn what he saw was something in that area, but the look was gone before he had time to register it. Ward was closed down, expressionless, emotionless. Hiding behind a stoic face, probably while he thought over what he'd been asked.

At least, Trip hoped that was what he was doing.

The specialist stood up, sliding his hands into his pockets, regarding the man in the grey jumpsuit in front of him. “I've got hope for you,” he started, voice quiet, but level. “I've seen the way some people love you. I've seen the way those same people have ended up hurt. Broken. People have to love in a big way, and care a whole lot to be that shaken up, Ward. If you've got people that love you that much...” he shrugged, turning away and heading back towards the door as he continued to speak. “If you try, and if you let them, just maybe, brother, maybe you can be saved.”


	8. Ward II

 There wasn't much else to do, stuck in the cell he was stuck in, than to think. At least, those were Ward's feelings on the matter. He'd been in here a few days now, and his only visitors – those that had stayed – had been Simmons and Triplett. He'd seen Coulson, and Koenig, and glimpsed May when she'd come to help Coulson take Simmons away. They never lingered, though. There was never any reason for their being there than to drop off or pick up his dishes. A few members of another team had come down to drop off things for the bathroom partition; toilet paper, toothpaste, toothbrush, nothing exciting. He'd been told, while they were there, that he would be allowed to get a shave in a few days, if he wanted. They would be by to check.

There wasn't much to do, except think.

His two visitors had given him some very broad questions to answer, too, while they had been with him. Jemma's was Why. Trip's had been How.

They were good questions. Ones that Ward himself was struggling to answer. That was because answering them meant opening cans of worms that he had locked away a long time ago.

Things really would be so much easier if he had been the man that they all thought he was. Maybe Trip was right, and that person was in him somewhere.

Grant just didn't know how to find that person.

With little much else to do than think, his mind had become prone to wandering, and wander it did. For the first time in a long time, he was thinking about his family, at length. His parents had been – still were, quite technically, no word of their passing had ever come down the line – Douglas and Julia. The man he took his middle name from. Maybe that had been something done in the hope that he too would turn out a monster like them, like Maynard.

Maybe they would be proud to see him now. Proud in ways they hadn't been fifteen years ago, when they were ready to throw him to the sharks and have him tried as an adult.

All he'd wanted to do was stop it. Stop everything, all the evil that went on in that damn house. That house was not a home.

Thinking of his parents, of course, fed in to thinking about Maynard. Thinking about Maynard led to thinking about his other siblings, Louis and Charlotte. Those were the thoughts that truly hurt. Everything he had done, that night, before he was arrested, had been for them. He'd been trying to protect them from the things that happened in that house. He had been trying to protect them in a way he had never been able to, when his brother had turned him into his tool, and his parents had turned a blind eye, or, alternatively, encouraged it.

Ward hadn't thought about Charlotte for a long time. A very long time. Not until the man who Billy Koenig shared a face with had asked him about his family. There was no point in lying then, and containing the family to their parents and his brothers. She was in his file. Maynard, Grant, Louis and Charlotte. And she was the one he didn't like to bring up, didn't like to think about.

What happened to her had been what drew him home.

He had been at military school, partly of his own choice, but partly because a counselor at the public school had suggested it. It was hard work, but he did it, and he enjoyed it. It was freeing, to be away from home, and be regimented, and taught, rather than used. That enjoyment had come to an abrupt end when Louis had called him, from a payphone at his public school.

Their parents had told Louis that Grant didn't need to know, so not to tell him, but Louis hadn't felt comfortable with that. It had taken a few days, but he'd scrounged up the courage to make the call, because he needed to know. Charlotte was in a coma. Maynard had done it, but Maynard was saved by the grace of the 'accident', as they were calling it. He'd pushed their sister down the stairs when she hadn't been fast enough to get away from him. She wasn't quick enough to get out of his reach, and he'd shoved her. All the way down the stairs, hit her head, broke her arm. She had been unconscious by the time she'd stopped rolling, and their parents hadn't seemed fussed.

Of course they hadn't. They never had been.

They'd just waited for her to regain consciousness. When she didn't, after a few minutes, Julia called 911, and Maynard slapped Louis upside the head. It wouldn't leave a visible mark if he did it like that, red slapped skin hidden under Louis' dark hair. Maynard had told him that all the cops and anybody needed to know was that she fell down the stairs. It was nothing more, and nothing less. Their father had stood there and agreed.

They'd all put on a very good show when the ambulance arrived.

What was Grant supposed to do? From hundreds and hundreds of miles away, all he could do was tell Louis to be careful, and take care of himself. He told him not to do anything that would get on their parents' or Maynard's bad sides. Keep his head down and wait it out. And he told him to call if there were any major changes, and he would try to get leave to come home and help in whatever way he could. Louis had begged him not to try. If Grant came home, then their parents would know that he had disobeyed them and told him. For that reason, he did nothing, just waiting for the next call, and praying for good news.

The next call he received was from Louis, calling to tell him that their parents would be signing the papers the next morning to have Charlotte taken off life support. She had barely been given a chance to try, and mom and dad were playing the 'we cannot put her through this' and 'she needs to be allowed to move on' cards. Maynard, for his part, didn't seem even slightly upset about it all.

Louis had told him he was scared, and he didn't know what to do.

Grant, however, did.

Military school hadn't left him with no knowledge, and had, rather, endowed him with almost too much. He'd left the school that night, stolen a truck, and driven all the way back to Massachusetts. He hadn't known why, or what he hoped to achieve by doing it, until he got back, and, upon surveillance, found the house empty, except for Maynard, asleep on the couch in front of the TV.

The plan had come to him, easy enough. Burn down the house with Maynard inside. Take Louis and go on the run. Destroy their identities, it couldn't be too hard. Live Maynard dead, like he had done to Charlotte, and leave their parents with nothing. It was more than they deserved.

He hadn't planned on being caught.

He shouldn't have tried to light the house on fire, maybe. Maybe that was where his plan had gone wrong. Maybe, though, if Maynard hadn't effectively killed their sister, he would have been rational enough to omit that part of the plan, and just take Louis and go.

That hadn't been the case, though. He'd been consumed by grief, and anger, and he'd made a stupid decision that had done all it could to damn them all. It had been the decision that landed him in juvenile detention, and that was where Garrett had found him.

Grant Ward made his choices. They'd left him to end up right where John Garrett could pick him up, and promise him a way out of the life he was facing. He had promised him an out when he was regretting everything, a way to leave the life he'd had behind, and make his own worth something more. He offered him a chance to make a difference against people like Maynard.

In the end, Garrett had shown him a tough kind of love, and raised him into a man, taught him how to be an effective agent. He'd also cut him off from social contact, and made a point to damn him for wanting any kind of attachments.

Maybe what Garrett had seen in him was a stallion that was already broken.

Ward had seen in Garrett a second chance at making someone proud.

Sitting in that cell, with blood on his hands, and Fitz's life in the balance for his actions, Ward found himself echoing the others. Why had he done what he did? How could he follow Garrett? Now, with Garrett gone, with no one to follow or to tell him what to do, who was he? Was he the man that they'd all believed he was? Or could he at least allow himself to become that person?

It was a good thing he had nothing else to do but think, because those questions were going to take some time to sort out.


	9. Skye II

 Skye was angry.

She knew that she was. She was angry to the point of punching something – or someone – but she wouldn't be seen giving in like that. She wasn't going to let what Ward did make her lose herself, lose control. All she had been doing for days is watching Jemma watch Fitz. She'd been bringing the biochemist food, and water, and trying to instigate her into coming for a walk around the compound, or doing anything that wasn't sitting and staring at his face with growing concern.

And Fitz...

Fitz hadn't woken up yet, and hadn't given any sign that he was going to. Granted, his condition hadn't gotten any worse, but it was brutal. It was horrible to sit there, and watch his face, and expect it to break into some kind of sardonic smile, when it didn't. It never moved, it stayed blank.

Skye was angry, and she needed somewhere to vent that anger, and right then, there was only one place she knew she could go to, without risking being questioned, without being bothered, and without anyone commenting on her anger.

Her booted feet pounded on the floor as she marched towards the cell that was Ward's. She hadn't been to see him yet, and she didn't think she could bear to. Looking at him might make her actually throw up, because thinking about him is enough to make her sick.

She had been falling for the man that she thought he was, and that had all turned out to be a sick and cruel joke. He wasn't Grant Ward, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D., he was Grant Ward, traitor and murderer, and, God, she still felt so stupid. None of them had seen through him, but she still feels stupid for missing it.

For letting him live when Mike and Garrett gave her the chance to let him die.

Where would Garrett have been without his right hand man? Maybe things would have been a lot different if she had just let Ward die on the floor of that plane.

The door closed behind her with a dull thud, and she walked up, right in front of the glass. It didn't take long to find Ward. He was the only thing in the cell, after all, and he wasn't doing anything but laying on the bed in the corner. At least, that's what he was doing, until he saw her standing there, in front of the glass. Once he saw her, he was up and moving, coming right up to the glass, and staring at her. Looking like he wanted to talk.

“I'm glad you can't speak,” Skye spat. It was vicious and angry and maybe, under difference circumstances, it would have seemed childish, but she didn't care. It didn't matter, anymore, what Grant Ward thought of her, while he rotted away in his cell. She wouldn't be gentle with him, because it wasn't what he deserved.

She stayed quiet after that, and, from talking with Trip, she knew that he had done the same. It was hard not to spew everything at someone all at once, but Skye wanted her words to leave an impact. At the very least, she wanted them to leave a mark. She was done with him, and she wanted him to know that every evil, vile, disgusting thing that he had done, she wasn't anywhere near prepared to forgive him for.

Ward nodded, his eyes losing whatever light they had sparked when he'd approached the glass, and he backed off. Skye, for her part, pulled up the chair that had been left there, and sat down, watching him with as cold of a stare as she could muster. The anger was still boiling inside her, threatening to spill over. She just needed to direct it.

“You murdered a lot of people, Ward. Good people. Eric Koenig. Victoria Hand. People whose names I can't even begin to guess, but I'm sure the list is as long as my arm. You almost added Fitz to it.”

At that, he flinched, or at least, did something approaching a flinch. That sparked the fire boiling in her veins. “What, you don't like hearing that?” she asked, tone hard. “It's true. You could have killed him, _and_ Simmons. You still might have his blood on your hands.

“You made us all trust you. Me, Coulson, May, FitzSimmons, Trip... All of us. You made us trust you, and made us think you were our friend. You made us like you. You let us, as a team, go after someone you knew was dangerous! You worked with him! And he shot me, Ward! I could have died! You might as well add my blood to the blood on your hands too!

“You tried to kill May, and me... God, you made me think you loved me! You don't love me, Ward!” Skye banged her fist off the glass, lightly, holding his gaze when he looked up at her. “You think you love me! You don't. You're obsessed with me, and I don't return the sentiment! I can't love you, and, you know what? I _won't_ love you.”

She could see the hurt in his face, and it shocked her for a second how good that felt. She was finally getting the chance to air his dirty laundry at him, and it felt so good to see him sit there, with nowhere to run, and no way to deflect. He had to listen to every word she said, and he couldn't make her stop.

“You tried to kill FitzSimmons.”

It was those words that got him on his feet again, shaking his head and waving his hands. Denying that he had tried to kill their friends, when the proof was...

“The proof is lying in a hospital bed upstairs, clinging to life, Ward!” Skye argued in the face of his denial. “You tried to kill them! You didn't manage it, but you clearly tried!”

All he did was shake his head again, his eyes almost pleading with her to understand.

“Oh, you didn't try to kill them?” She made a disgusted noise. “Give me a break! You told them to get out of the pod, and when they didn't, you ejected them! What the hell is wrong with you, trying to claim you _didn't_ try to kill them?” She ignored the reminder in her head that Jemma had said that Fitz had told her the pod was supposed to have floated. “You did try to kill them, and you did it the most cowardly way you could have done it.”

Ward hadn't stopped shaking his head. He had even adding mouthing the word 'no' to his performance. It didn't matter, it wasn't changing her mind. He couldn't give her a valid argument to the contrary of why it was that he had done what he did, and how on earth he could have possibly not been trying to kill FitzSimmons. Not right now, at least.

Skye fell silent, and he stopped trying to wordlessly argue with her. The look in his eyes had gone from hurt, to something very far away.

Skye took that as her turn to shake her head.

“I don't know who you are,” she said. “And I'm not sure I care enough to find out.”


	10. Coulson I

 For the entirety of his time in the cell, Coulson had been the one bringing Ward his meals. Occasionally Koenig had accompanied him, but that was a few and far between kind of thing. It was rare for the former agent in charge of the Playground to take the trip with him downstairs. Coulson didn't fault the man for it. Their prisoner had killed his brother. That was an offense that any lesser man might have tried to kill Ward for. Coulson wasn't bothered if he didn't come along to deliver breakfast, lunch and dinner.

Today's lunch was going to be a little different, though, Coulson had decided. He had spent the weeks since Ward had arrived with them, gathering as much information on him as he could, Everything from his elementary school report cards to the results of his last evaluation through S.H.I.E.L.D. Fury had posed him a question, or, at least, a duty. While he was trying to rebuild S.H.I.E.L.D., the way it was supposed to be, he was also tasked with answering Fury's question. Or, Fury's open ended statement that he would know what to do.

Did he know what to do? Save a man from himself. No man was unimportant enough not to be saved.

Did that really extend to a man like Grant Ward, who had done some pretty horrible things, some of them directly against Coulson and the people he cared about?

Today's lunch would be accompanied by the thick folder that Coulson was carrying under his arm. Some light reading, as it were. Everything that any computer system had ever had on Grant Ward, he would be pouring over. Thanks to Skye, they had been able to track these things down. Even with her having erased his identity. The girl was good. Coulson was glad he'd have her at his side while he tried to rebuild S.H.I.E.L.D.

Ward's beard was beginning to get scraggly, but he hadn't yet accepted a shave. Maybe he was afraid of what someone would do to him with a razor blade against his throat. Given what he had done, Coulson thought it was a valid fear.

Coulson slid the tray into the compartment, and then took a seat. He'd never stayed before; the betrayal was too fresh, and it hurt too much, but he had a mission now. He wanted to try and understand the man on the other side of the plexiglass. The one who was now giving him a wary look as he reached for the tray Coulson had left.

“You can go ahead and eat, I'm not going to do anything,” Coulson said lightly. “I'm just going to sit and read.” At that, he lifted the file in his hand, showing it to Ward as he pulled the tray the rest of the way into the cell. “This is all about you, Grant. State files, military files. A few things seized from Garrett's personal effects.” Those had arrived by courier two days ago. Fury, again. “I'm going to try to understand, at least, until you can talk for yourself.”

Ward's eyes kept their cagey look, but he nodded, and moved to the table in the corner of the cell to eat. Obedient and docile. The first was maybe not so strange, but the other was a trait that didn't fit either Grant Ward that Coulson had known in the last few months.

Over the last two weeks, Coulson had been trying to come to terms with what he had been handed; with who he had been handed. Grant Ward had done a number on him, and his team. He had expected the man to stay in military custody, and undergo military interrogations, once he was healed enough to speak. He had not expected to see him again, for a good long while. So, when he had arrived, with Fury's instruction going before him that Coulson 'knew what to do', the former liaison was at a loss. What did he know? He knew that he could let Skye, or Jemma, at him, and they would tear him to pieces. He knew that Billy Koenig was sheltering his brother's killer. He knew that May had yet to conjure the care to look Ward in the eye. And he knew that somewhere above them, Fitz was in a coma, and it was because of the man sitting here, eating lunch.

Coulson had struggled, to say the least, and had taken his time to try and start to do what Fury expected of him.

The man wasn't even the director anymore, and Coulson was aiming to please him.

It wasn't only that, though. Fury was right about saving people. If Fury was putting Grant Ward in Coulson's hands now, it was for a good reason. It was because Fury either knew or suspected something that he needed Coulson to suss out. If Coulson did, maybe things would change.

That, until Ward was able to speak, was the point of the files that he, May and Skye had worked so hard to gather. Even if the latter had grumbled about how they shouldn't be making attempts to try to understand him.

Looking at the file, those thoughts stayed in the back of his mind. Coulson looked for a hint, searched for the answer to the riddle, and, at the same time, struggled with the instructions. It was hard to look up at the man in the cell and not be livid with him. It was hard not to want him to be literally anywhere else on the planet but near him and his team. It was hard to expect that Fury thought he could find an answer and reconcile those feelings, even knowing what Ward had done.

There had to be a reason. Fury wouldn't have given the man to him if there wasn't. There had to be something more to Ward's story than bad morals and a taste for murder and treason.

So, Coulson sat there, and he read.

He read while Ward ate, and then returned his tray to the compartment.

He sat there while Ward sat on the bed, and stared at him. He could feel the other's eyes on him but he didn't bother to look up, he just kept reading.

Coulson read while Ward stretched out on the bed and stared at the ceiling, with his hands laced over his stomach. He doesn't move, and Coulson reads.

And Coulson begins to understand.

It was two hours later when Coulson finally stood up. In the instant that he did, Ward sat up, and looked at him. Maybe he wanted to ask what Coulson had found, maybe he wanted to ask why Coulson had chose to do the reading there.

Maybe he wanted to ask what Coulson was going to do with him now.

He couldn't voice any of those questions now, though, and so he sat quietly while Coulson tucked the file folder back under his arm, and retrieved the empty tray.

Coulson looked at him once more, and took a deep breath. “Good night, Grant,” he said, quietly, and turned to leave the hallway, and head back upstairs to the main part of the compound.

He needed to talk to May.


	11. Ward III

 No one was telling him anything, and while Grant didn't expect them to come down to his cell and start reading the daily list of new developments about S.H.I.E.L.D. and Hydra and everything in between, he would have liked clarification on a few things. He knew the date. He knew that Coulson, Simmons, Skye, May, and Trip were all capable of walking. Koenig, too.

No one would tell him how Fitz was. The matter had begun to weigh on him when Simmons first came to see him, but it had only gotten heavier every day since. No one had said a word to him about how Fitz was; he suspected if Fitz was dead, though, Simmons wouldn't be restricting her visits – if they could even be called that – to paces by the front of his cell, her face blank as a slate. More than likely she would find a way into his cell to exact revenge on him. It was an informed guess, going by her first visit, and, when he thought about it, at night, when his brain was spinning too fast to bother shutting down for sleep, Grant would find himself wondering if he'd even bother stopping her.

By letting FitzSimmons live – as far as he had known – he had defied Garrett, but the man wouldn't have had to find out for a very, very long time. Not if Ward had had his way.

He hadn't, though.

He hadn't had his way, and Fitz had suffered for it.

Coulson, of course, veteran as he is, and, so, skilled at keeping secrets, wouldn't tell Grant anything about Fitz, even though he'd not been scared of asking his former leader. Coulson, aside from Trip, visited the most. His visits mostly consisted of him coming down to the cell block, pulling up the chair, and reading. Always working his way through the file, that seemed to only grow more and more every day. Knowing that Skye had erased any record of Grant Ward from the world, the once-mole wondered how the folder could be gaining more and more information about him. Hard copies were definitely something that some agencies believed in, and maybe that was where everything was coming from. Hard copies from his old school boards, from the juvenile detention center. Things like that.

Coulson comes down, sits, and reads. Occasionally he will look up, but he never comments. Ward wasn't sure if his presence and company were comforting or disconcerting. He'd been telling himself that they definitely had surveillance of his cell, so if this was about watching him, Coulson wouldn't need to be sitting there. It had to be about something else.

What, he didn't know.

Triplett visited the most, after Coulson. The specialist came down almost daily, tablet in hand, and started going through the daily news for Ward. If anyone could be given the blame – or the thanks – for keeping Ward's hopes up, it would be Trip. The bother that Ward's actions left with him had a tendency to come up in every discussion, but for the most part, Trip acted as though he was content to be sitting there, filling Ward in on the goings-on in the world. There was a lot of political crap going on out there, right now, it seemed. To be fair, it would be remiss not to have expected it. The whole Hydra-hiding-within-S.H.I.E.L.D. fiasco was more than enough to have more than a few politicians clamouring.

Ward would often find himself smiling when Trip would tell him of another loss Hydra had suffered in their great coming out event. They were being extracted, and Trip told him that it's been a long and slow process, and it's not a definite win for S.H.I.E.L.D. yet, but they were making progress. The way he tells him these things is like a teacher leading an unbiased discussion in class. No heavy leanings either way, though Ward knew that he was leaning on the side of S.H.I.E.L.D. Maybe what he was looking for was for Ward's uninfluenced response.

How Trip could trust that his smiles were genuine, though, Ward didn't know. After everything, he couldn't believe that any of them trusted that he wasn't just making them look at his left hand while he did something with his right.

All of Triplett's visits ended with the same questions, though. How. Always how.

Ward still didn't have answers for that, himself.

What happened during the years after Garrett got him, how he was twisted and turned to become a tool for a man, who, the more Ward thinks about it, alone in that cell by himself, never saw him as anything more than a tool and a pawn, he didn't know how to explain. What happened in the wilderness? How could he sign on to Hydra?

That answer, for that question, he was confident he knew how to answer, now.

The fact was, he had never been Hydra loyal. Hydra was just another faceless organization, this one, though, one of people Ward wouldn't know from the average S.H.I.E.L.D. agent. Being part of Hydra meant that you never truly knew who was friend and who was foe. Besides, whatever their goal, it wasn't one that Ward totally understood, not one he had totally felt privy to.

He was Garrett loyal.

John Garrett had been his very first light in the darkness. The man had come out of nowhere, it seemed. Swooped in with a cocky attitude and a strike team to match, and promised Ward escape from the life he'd known. No more parents, no more Maynard. No more being known as weak, or worthless, or pathetic. Garrett would make him strong, show him the way to _be_ strong.

It had sounded too good to be truth, but, like the forbidden fruit, too good to resist. When a person is in perpetual darkness, with only the promise of deeper dark to come, how are they supposed to refuse the lure of the light? Particularly when the darkness was all they had ever known?

Grant insisted to Garrett that he wasn't that scared kid anymore; the fact was, that scared kid might have been the only part of the real Grant Ward he had left. He had let Maynard, their parents, his own weakness, crush him down into the brother who would be used to punish his siblings. He had let Garrett polish and hone him into a gleaming gun that needed Garrett's finger, and Garrett's only, to pull the trigger before it could destroy.

Grant understood that, now. Laying in the gloom in his cell, with nothing to do but think, he had begun to see his mistakes, and understand where it was that he was manipulated. He had been too blind to see it, truly, before. Too blind, and too grateful.

Garrett had told him he'd gotten Louis out. Out of the life that they had known. He'd told Ward that he went back, and helped Louis get to a counselor who helped him with emancipating himself from their parents. Garrett had said that Louis was being put on his feet to make his own life, and he was safe now. Grant didn't need to worry about him anymore. And then Garrett had left him in that wilderness again, for the second time.

The difference was, that time, that he had begun to learn, and he was more confident, and he couldn't possibly be angry or upset with Garrett for leaving him, not when the man had saved his brother.

Grant had never bothered to look into the legitimacy of that. In all the years that followed, he had never bothered to fact check Garrett's assurances. There had been no reason not to trust that it was fact. Garrett had helped him, after all. Louis was easier to help, he had assumed. The kid was fully capable of maneuvering into society without a hitch. He didn't have the impending criminal record Grant had had.

He had never checked, because he had been blinded into thinking that Garrett had never done anything but help him.

Like when he'd killed Buddy.

At the thought of the labrador retriever, Grant made a noise, somewhere in his throat. The pain that had accompanied any attempt at sound up until the past few days didn't make an appearance. He was beginning to enter the final stages of his healing, he suspected. He could make noise without pain, now. He'd even, alone, tried a few words. His voice was still hoarse, and it sounded almost shredded at times, but it was coming along. A mild injury of this kind would have been pretty well healed by the week point.

His injury hadn't been exactly mild, but it hadn't been fatal, either. He was doing good for this level of ability at two and a half weeks since the incident.

Thinking about Buddy hurt. The more he'd thought about it, the more it had become obvious to Grant that Buddy was all he'd had, for a time in his life when he should have accepted that he would soon have nothing. He had never even truly _had_ Garrett. Garrett had him. He was just another tool in the man's quest for survival. An easily malleable, and trainable one, but just a tool, nevertheless.

Buddy, though, had been different. The dog had been his rock and his confidante, his friend, in a time when he had nothing. Were it not for Buddy, Grant probably wouldn't have survived the first few weeks that he had been left on his own. The dog had helped him, given him strength, courage, and companionship. All he had expected for it was a couple of pieces of whatever they managed to catch for dinner, and a place to lie when Grant slept.

Thinking about it now, Ward could still easily feel the sturdy press of the dog's side against his arm while he'd laid on his back in the tent, and tried to sleep. Buddy had been with him when he'd had nothing in the world; nothing except for Buddy.

It was easy to understand that that was the reason that he hadn't been able to just kill the dog when Garrett had ordered it.

He couldn't kill Buddy, because Buddy was his friend, and he cared about him. He cared about that damn dog, he loved that damn dog, so much.

And that was why Garrett had done it for him.

There was a lesson in all that, and Ward had sworn to himself that he would never forget it. There was a special kind of pain reserved for the loss of loved ones. He'd felt it when he knew that Charlotte was lost. He felt it again went he watched Buddy's body slump in the distance, the echo of John's rifle shot still echoing in the clearing. That time, he internalized it as a lesson.

If you didn't want to feel that crippling, incapacitating pain, you simply didn't become attached to anyone or anything. Love nothing, and lose nothing.

That was the truth of evading weakness. Attachment was weak, so shrugging it off would make him strong; stronger every day. Grant had sworn the lesson wasn't lost on him.

But he'd ignored it, within the first week of being on that plane.

He'd cared. He had made connections, he had made _friends_. He had his _team_ and, despite his best efforts, he'd ended up caring about them. He'd ended up loving them, in whatever convoluted way he felt love now. He'd tried to justify it, on the nights when it seemed more and more unlikely that he was completing Garrett's mission; he'd jumped after Simmons to garner trust, not because he'd wanted to save her. He slept with May to seduce her, he certainly hadn't been seduced, and he certainly wasn't actually enjoying the outlet that she provided him and the confidante she proved to be. He had talked Fitz up to get the guy to like him, not because he'd felt that truth in the pit of his stomach.

He had known that his justifications were thin at best, but their girth didn't matter so long as Garrett believed the words that came out of his mouth. Raina, too. Anyone on Garrett's side who would listen.

He kept his care and love for that team to himself, and it was the reason he'd ejected FitzSimmons.

Leaving them hadn't been an option. Sooner or later, they would have had to come out, or someone would go in after them. Even in that med pod, where they thought they were safe, they weren't. Ward was supposed to kill them. Those were Garrett's orders. Even if Garrett had died, they would have been doomed to die, because someone would have cut into that pod and killed them out of sheer vengeance for bringing down one of the highest standing Hydra operatives.

There had been no way to save them. Not unless he'd gotten them off the plane.

So, he got them off the plane.

He had played the bad guy, and he had been remorseful – the trip down wouldn't be painless, they would be jostled and tossed around, and they deserved better - but he'd done the only thing he could to save them. He'd let them go, same as he had with Buddy.

The difference with FitzSimmons was that the pod was supposed to float.

Even Grant Ward knew that the S.H.I.E.L.D. med pods were meant to adapt to their surroundings. They made themselves all-weather and all-terrain, and they could survive land, sea and air. Yes, the scientists would be jostled in the drop, but at the end of it all, they would be safe. They would be _saved_. Someone would notice a damn hospital room floating in the Gulf. They would be safe and saved, and their lives wouldn't be in danger.

From what he'd been told, though, the pod did the opposite of what it should have. It had sunk. It had dropped right down, with FitzSimmons trapped inside.

They'd gotten out, somehow. But, Fitz...

Ward sighed, and rolled over, facing the wall of his cell. There was a lot to be said about the position and alignment of his mental state, he knew that much as fact. There are issues, and he didn't know what he wanted for sure.

All he knew was he wanted Fitz to be okay.


	12. May I

 “This is a lot of paper,” May deadpanned, looking across the desk at Coulson, Ward's elementary school records spread between them. “And just when we thought Skye had totally erased us from the board...”

“There's something to be said for the beauty of hard copies.” Coulson said, the hint of a smile on his face. They'd been working on this for the better part of a week. Piecing together, without Ward's input, the things that had gone on in his life. There had been rather enough of it in S.H.I.E.L.D.'s personnel file on the man, but there was something to be said for a thorough investigation of their own. They were piecing together the riddle from the ground up.

Fury's direction was clear. Whether it was one man, or all of mankind, it was the job of S.H.I.E.L.D. to save and protect. To rebuild S.H.I.E.L.D., Coulson needed to start with that one man.

Even if he was Grant Ward, someone who still made Coulson ask multitudes of questions. Angry ones, ones he hadn't voiced to the specialist, ones that he may never voice.

Depending on whether or not they got his story sorted.

“What we've got is a child who displayed social anxiety – manageable social anxiety – and an unapproachable demeanour, who grew into a teen who was quiet, closed off, and often had teachers wondering if he was full of a lot of anger. The teachers _also_ seemed aware, or suspected, what the home situation was, but opted not to get involved.” Coulson set down the last record of Ward's time at a public school and frowned across the piles at May. “Does that sound necessarily responsible to you? Aren't teachers supposed to report these things if they suspect them?”

“That was what I understood,” May answered, looking over her own page. “Keep in mind the local power that his parents had. Those teachers may have been very, very reluctant to speak out against someone who could have them easily ousted from their hometown. Even if the accusations proved true.”

Coulson nodded. “True. Still doesn't seem right. In any case,” he lifted another paper, this one the first hard copy they had collected from Ward's military school. “Ward ends up at military school. He excels, because he's so good at taking direction, and being taught. He seems content, if not happy. Go figure, getting out of that madhouse made him crack a smile. Never would have expected that.”

May didn't respond, but the sound that she made, a small huff of laughter, was input enough.

“Then... Go forward a bit, Ward's still at military school. His sister, Charlotte Rose Ward, has an accident at home, and passes into a vegetative state at hospital. Her parents choose to pull the plug.” he frowned. “That coincides, roughly, with the day Grant Douglas Ward goes AWOL from military school. Next seen in Plymouth, Massachusetts, in the custody of law officials, charged with arson.” His eyes continued down the page. “Side note, Maynard Victor Ward was the only one home at the time Grant attempted to burn down his family home. Maynard also was pursuing the option of...” Coulson trailed off into a non-committal hum. “Having Grant tried as an adult, and adding attempted murder to the charges.”

“You can't deny he would have had a case,” May said, but without malice. Pure fact. It was obvious. Ward had made the attempt on his brother's life and the family home, after Charlotte had passed. The accident at home, then, can't have been as accidental as the reports said. At least, that was what Coulson understood. “I suspect Grant knew a bit more about that accident than the officials did.” May continued, picking up on Coulson's thoughts. “The other brother...” she lifted a page, reading the name off it. “Louis Dana Ward. I assume he must have gotten in contact with Grant somehow.” She left the page fall, and leaned back in her seat, raising a hand to pinch the bridge of her nose for a moment. “So, what's next?”

“Nothing.”

May looked up, eyes narrowing in confusion as she regarded Coulson. “Nothing?”

“Nothing.” He confirmed. “At least, not for five years. There's a long stretch of nothing between age seventeen and age twenty-two. Last report comes from the juvenile center. Next one after that is from the Academy. That last report, though?” Coulson smiled wryly. “Want to take a guess who Grant's last known visitor was, before he was removed from the center?”

May's mouth pressed into a thin line for a moment,and she took a slow breath before speaking. “John Garrett.”

“You win the kewpie doll,” Coulson responded. “John Garrett. Then, Ward disappears off the map for five years, and when he shows up again, it's as John's protegee. Says he found the kid in Wyoming, and he's got the right stuff to be a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent. Operations accepted him immediately on John's recommendation. With, apparently, high praise attached.”

“So,” May said, finally, after the silence had hung in the air between them for a while. “Does Garrett, to the knowledge we were able to scrape up, have any properties in Wyoming?”

“Nope.”

“He had him out in the wilderness, then. Away from people, cut off for training.”

“And conditioning,” Coulson said, almost as a throwaway, but the second the word left his mouth, it tugged at him for attention.

Conditioning was a broad term, and could apply to a lot of things, even within the nature of S.H.I.E.L.D. Physical conditioning was definitely something that Operations recruits went through, as well as conditioning to handle the high stress situations they were liable to enter, and conditioning to withstand the elements, and the living conditions that they may be exposed to in their lines of work.

It made sense that Garrett would have taken Ward under his wing for different types of conditioning that followed those paths. Even if the Academy itself taught the methods, Garrett had always been a very hands-on supervising officer. And he would have wanted any rookie of his to demand a certain level of respect – not only for themselves, but for him, too.

That wasn't, however, the only definition of conditioning.

“It's not always physical, Phil,” Melinda said quietly, once again catching on to his train of thought. She was always good at that when he needed her to be. “S.H.I.E.L.D. taught psychological conditioning for occupational reasons, but,” she shrugged one shoulder. “You and I both know that what the agency taught wasn't the only kind of psychological conditioning out there.”

“Exactly what I was thinking.” Coulson agreed.

“If Garrett had Grant out in the wilderness in Wyoming? For five years?” May shook her head, crossing her arms, the pieces seeming to fall into place. “He was cut off, had no one but Garrett for human contact... I wouldn't put it past the bastard to have pulled a few tricks of his own.”

Coulson nodded, slow and thoughtful. The pieces were finally slotting together, and the picture that they were creating was far from pretty. “If you're thinking what I'm thinking, it doesn't entirely absolve Grant of the things that he did.”

Melinda nodded. “But not all brainwashing is done by a machine.” Coulson knew what she was alluding to. The machine that S.H.I.E.L.D. loyals had been shown by captive Hydra agents who had been loyal to Alexander Pierce. The one that had kept James Barnes from returning to himself, and kept him as the Winter Soldier. “It doesn't excuse what he's done, Coulson, and I can't believe I'm saying this, after what I was ready to do, but.” She leaned forward, spreading her hands on the desk top. “It doesn't mean he's entirely irredeemable. It means he needs help.”

Coulson nodded. “Our help. If he agrees.”

“If he agrees.”


	13. May II

 It was easier to walk down the stairs when she wasn't barely suppressing the anger she had been carrying for weeks. Not that she wouldn't have been able to control herself, but Melinda May didn't believe in making unnecessary moves. She was busy enough with helping Coulson rebuild S.H.I.E.L.D., and unravel Fury's riddle, without testing her patience by spending extended time down in the cell block.

Now, though, it was exceedingly easy, because she felt like she understood a lot more. And she did. Understand more, that is. May now had an idea of the sort of things that Ward had been through, though she had no specifics. She and Phil agreed that whatever had happened to him to turn him into the mole that he was didn't absolve him of his crimes, but it did raise a red flag. It did mean that they had the option, if they could be strong enough to do it, to extend him aid.

Forgiveness would definitely be a lot harder to come across. Especially with Fitz still in a coma in the medical bay. But understanding and help; they didn't need forgiveness attached to exist. Not necessarily.

That was why she walked down the stairs, and headed towards the door that led to Ward's cell, with a small canvas bag slung over her shoulder. The Playground turned out to have an interesting selection of books in its library, and this would be Melinda's first step towards opening the door to Ward, should he choose to walk through.

He was probably slowly going crazy with nothing to do but stare at his walls and, occasionally, talk to Triplett.

Ward looked up when she came into view, and he still looked surprised to see her. This wasn't her first visit to see him, but her second. She did understand, though, his surprise. When she had visited the day before, she hadn't done a lot. All she had done was stare at him in his cell, testing the limits of her understanding, and gauging whether she could turn it into something productive this quickly, when there were other things she could be expending energy on. It had made him edgy, she was well aware. He'd paced, and thrown her odd looks, with the occasional questioning stare. She hadn't let it phase her, She was busy finding her answer, the answer to her question for herself. That answer had been yes, and that was why she had come back today.

Ward's eyes moved to the bag on her shoulder, and he raised a questioning eyebrow, looking back at her face. When Triplett came down, he brought a tablet to read news off of. Coulson brought food, or the folder they had compiled. Simmons came empty handed. Melinda was the first one to come with a bag.

Grant stayed sitting on the edge of the bed this time, and May wondered if that was because he was going to resign to laying down and ignoring her – or attempting to – early on, or if he just wasn't willing to get up and engage in their staring contest again.

“I've got something for you,” she said, pulling the bag down from her shoulder. On the other side of the glass, Grant stiffened. It wouldn't have been noticeable if she hadn't been trained for years to recognise signs in people that meant they were nervous or discomforted. “Nothing bad,” she continued, realizing that, really, those were the first words that she had spoken to him since she'd nailed his foot to the floor. On their own, given that, she supposed he had reason to stiffen.

The books she had chosen weren't many, but they were something, at least, to occupy his time in the cell. May had walked through the shelves, picking out the fiction amongst the manuals and handbooks, textbooks and records. These, she deemed, were classics in someone's book, and, maybe, Ward hadn't read them before. Even if he had, they still fulfilled a purpose: they gave him something to do other than stare at the walls and slowly go crazy while whatever he was thinking about – and it was aware to any of them who watched the video footage of him in his cell that he was thinking, and thinking quite a bit – flipped around in his mind.

Moving closer, May opened the compartment door in the wall, and slid the small stack of books in. Ward, still sitting on his bed, eyed them for a moment, before he made any move to get up. It was a stark contrast from any of their latest encounters. He had reasons to be confused, and confused he was. The look of confusion only grew wider when he lifted the stack out on his side, and flipped through, glancing at the covers.

_The Great Gatsby._

_The Hobbit._

_The Giver._

_Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone._

The last one made him look up at her, and even with how angry she still was with him, May couldn't hold back the barest of smiles at the look of confusion on his face that just seemed to ask 'really?'

Instead of answering, she reached into the bag, and took out the last thing remaining; her own tablet. Then, she took her seat in the chair they'd all come to count as a constant outside his cell, and set to some reading of her own, though hers wasn't nearly as fictional. For his part, Ward stayed at the glass, holding the books and looking at her, and glancing at them, before, finally, with one last skeptical look tossed between Melinda and the boy wizard, he moved back to his bed. Harry, Bilbo, and Jonas were set on the floor, but Gatsby stayed in his hands. Melinda kept her eyes on him for a moment, watching how he moved back on the bed until he was sitting against the wall, and crossed his legs, before opening the book. Then she went back to her own reading.

Spending as many hours down there as she did wasn't in May's original plan, but when she finally looked at the time, and noticed that almost four had passed, she couldn't find it in herself to be overly bothered. Ward, for his part, had been well behaved. He'd shuffled around a bit, and gotten up to go to the bathroom at one point. There had been no ranting, no railing, no sketchy looks tossed her way. From what she could see, he was a good portion of the way through Gatsby, too. She stood up, gathering her bag and tablet, and left him to it without another word. It would be time for dinner, soon, anyway, and if Coulson wanted to talk with him, she wasn't going to intrude.

The next day she made her way to his cell again, but this time, without the books. Today's visit wasn't about giving him something to keep his mind off of his thoughts. Today's visit was planned to be about encouraging his thoughts in a true line.

When she came down the hall, Grant looked up from The Hobbit. The Great Gatsby was on the floor next to The Giver and Harry Potter, and The Hobbit joined it, after he folded down one of the page's corners. His feet touched the floor, and he moved to the edge of the bed.

And for the first time, he spoke. His voice was raspy, but it sounded better than she imagined it would. “Should I get up?”

“If you want to.” she said offhandedly, stopping in front of the glass. “You finished Gatsby.”

Ward nodded, lifting the book up from under The Hobbit, before he walked over to the glass, dropping it into the compartment between them. “Thank you.”

Ignoring that, Melinda instead focused on his face again. Like two days before, she stared and attempted to see into him. She didn't expect it to be easy. He wore armour that was exceedingly difficult to see through. May liked to think, though, that having been in this cell for as long as he had, now, maybe he was beginning to think on his choices. Maybe he was beginning to figure out who he was without John Garrett holding his leash.

On his side, Grant didn't flinch, or stiffen, but he did hold her stare. That encouraged her. He wasn't acting cowed, for one thing. If he had, she might have doubted his sincerity.

“Coulson gave me a second chance,” May said, quiet between them and the glass. “When he had his doubts about my allegiance, about what I was doing, what I was ordered to do – he didn't have to, even if I insisted he should, but he did.” Ward nodded. “He thought he was right, and even when he didn't know he was wrong, he gave me a second chance. The difference in our cases, is that you, Ward, were wrong.”

He didn't flinch, but there was a moment where his blink felt a bit too long, and his nostrils flared. Taking a deep breath. Understandable. She was telling him that he had been wrong, that he had made lethal, fatal mistakes.

“But, Coulson believes in second chances.” No nostril flare. At all. He was holding his breath. Waiting for the other shoe to drop? She could easily say 'unfortunately, you won't be one of the people who gets one', but that was basely untrue, and not something she planned to say. “You might get lucky. If it's what you really, truly want.”

Ward didn't answer her. Not in words, anyway. He just nodded, holding her gaze for a while before stepping away from the glass. Signaling his understanding of what May was saying.

She hoped.

“There's one more thing I wanted to let you know,” she continued, watching his face. The understanding expression was gone, replaced by one of interest.

And, potentially, she thought, there, in a glimmer... hope.

“Fitz's brain patterns are becoming increasingly positive. He's not awake yet, but his brain is moving like it hasn't in weeks.”

May had been right about the glimmer of hope. She saw it spread over Ward's face; hope, relief, and, maybe, gratitude. Happiness. The presence of those emotions on his face would have shocked her, if she and Coulson hadn't already worked out what they had.

“Garrett didn't want you to care,” May started, quietly. “But you did. Garrett didn't want you to be anything but a weapon, a shield for him, and him alone.” Ward, who had been holding her look, broke eye contact, looking down, at the book sitting in the compartment. “You began to care about this team, and care for this team. When you turned around and started to do that, because you _couldn't help it_ , Garrett's conditioning made you believe you'd made some kind of fatal flaw.” She was hitting home with this. It was all speculation, but she could tell, from his little tics, that she was hitting home. She was hitting the truth. John Garrett had conditioned Grant Ward to disdain care and love for anyone but him. And this, this was the product. “Look at me,” she ordered, voice firm, and just a bit louder than it had been before. Ward wasn't stubborn about it, looking up when she spoke. “You did not make a fatal flaw, Grant. You let yourself be the man that you would have been if life had taken you on a different course.” If Coulson had found him before Garrett, for instance.

May reached into the compartment, pulling the book out, and stepped back from the glass. “You have choices to make, now, Grant.” She turned, walking down the hallway, taking her leave, and calling back, “Who are you going to be?”


	14. Triplett II

 A week passed before Trip dared to say anything. He had been starting to tell certain things about Ward, during the visits that they had. For one, it was obvious that his visits were actually doing things to lift the former agent's spirits. He'd actually smiled a few times, and not tried to hide it. The man that Triplett had thought he knew was beginning to become the man behind the glass. Or, the man behind the glass was turning into the man that Trip had thought Grant Ward to be. There was still a heavy darkness around him, and in him. That was to be expected.

The man had done bad things. Horrible things, really. There was no sugarcoating his actions, his behaviours, or his choices. Coulson had come across something, though. May must have been in on whatever it was, because she was suddenly visiting Ward, she was the one bringing him books.

Ward had started talking again, too. Nothing extensive, at least not with Trip. They'd had short chats, but Ward hadn't offered up the chase for Trip to hear his confession. Trip, honestly, was glad for that. He knew that the interrogation of Grant Ward was coming. All it was waiting for was for him to regain the power of speech. Now that he was talking, and at a good level, there was little to stop the interrogation from commencing. Ward was still bruised, and he still needed to pause every few minutes to drink water when he spoke. His voice still sounded like sandpaper, and he was still cagey, for as much as he'd opened up. All that shouldn't factor into holding off the interrogation, though.

Still, they were waiting for the other shoe to drop.

So, Trip still came down. He would come down to the cell, and hang out with Ward. They'd have short and slow conversations about the news, about how Ward was doing, and how Harry's treating him. It had become some kind of inside joke with them, ever since Grant, striking up conversation, asked, “Have you ever read these books? They're... pretty good.”

Now, Ward had a water bottle in his hand, and was sitting on the edge of his bed while Trip scrolled down his tablet.

“Hey, man, can I ask you a question?”

“You can,” Trip answered, almost reflexively. “But _may_ you?”

The look Ward gave him from inside his cell was far from amused, and Trip gave him a small smirk, clicking off his tablet screen for the moment. “Shoot.”

Ward had been getting more and more bold, over the past week, and has begun asking questions about how the Hydra extraction was going. Every time he seemed pleased, relieved, but he would quickly hide it. The shame and confusion and lack of direction were clearly still very present in him.

“Any more news on how the recovery of people from the Fridge is going?”

Trip had suspected that would be the nature of the question. He nodded, leaning forward. “Yep. The Canadians caught a couple of them two days ago. Three or four, I think. That's a big win for little S.H.I.E.L.D.”

The flash of triumph in Ward's eyes was unmistakeable, but within a second it was buried again, and the man nodded. “Good to hear.”

It had been something that Trip had been trying to work out for a few days. Ward still tried to pretend that he wasn't happy to hear stories of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s successes against Hydra. The other man wasn't sure whether it was because Ward thought he wasn't supposed to be happy that Hydra was being dismantled, or if it was because he had convinced himself that he shouldn't feel any sort of attachment to S.H.I.E.L.D, and the good fight, and their cause..

Antoine sighed, and edged forward, elbows braced on his knees, hands clasped between them. “Grant, do me a favour?” Despite the serious nature of the request he was about to make, he laughed at the dubious look he was given.

“Be the person that you would have been if it had been Coulson, instead of Garrett.”

Speak of the devil, Triplett only had a few seconds to take in the pensive expression on Ward's face before the steel door was opening, and Coulson joined them. The new director didn't have the thick folder with him that he normally did when he came to visit Ward, and for a moment, Trip was concerned his earlier thoughts had damned them: this was when the shoe dropped. He had to trust Coulson, but that interrogation was coming any day now. Coulson smiled at him, sitting in his chair, and gestured over his shoulder.

“Simmons was wondering if I could have you sent up to help her,” he said. “I figured you wouldn't mind, because I would like to have a few words with Ward.”

Triplett nodded simply. He wouldn't disobey the indirect order to scram. Coulson didn't seem to be in the mood for an intense interrogation, at least not right now. The wave of protectiveness Trip had felt – for someone who had been aligned to Hydra – subsided, and he stood, nodding to Ward, who returned the gesture, before he left.

Being left with Coulson wasn't all that scary. It hadn't been, as of late. The man who had been Ward's team leader hadn't been as intimidating as Ward had expected him to be.

He had still been plenty intimidating, though.

That folder held things that Ward couldn't be sure of, truths and facts he wasn't sure most people had ever known about him. It was thick enough to have every hard copy record of his existence that was still floating around in the world.

And Ward had no way of knowing what it had told Coulson.

The man in questioned had settled into Triplett's seat, watching Ward carefully. The prisoner took that as a sign that he, too, should stay seated. No getting up, no pacing, and no trip to the bathroom. There was going to come a day when he was going to have to answer for what he had done. There was every potential in the world for that day to have arrived.

He stayed put, but he tensed significantly.

Coulson reached into his jacket, fingers digging into the inner pocket, a gesture that didn't help with the way Ward was tensing. The other man could pull just about anything from that pocket. What he did end up pulling from it was a voice recorder. Leaning forward, and up, Coulson set in on the base of the compartment in the glass. Even with the divider between the viewing side and the prisoner side, it would be able to pick up anything Ward said. He recognised the model.

Fitz had designed it three months back.

Coulson regarded him for a second, and then spoke.

“What happened with Garrett, Grant? What happened in Wyoming?”


	15. Team II

 “There you are.”

Coulson and Koenig both looked up at the same time, giving May identical looks. Fatigue. Stress. And, alongside those, most especially in Coulson, determination. And hope. The man looked weary, but that light was back in him, one that she hadn't seen for weeks. It was a sight for sore eyes.

“Have a good talk, then?”

Phil had been down with Ward for hours. He'd gone down with one of the voice recorders that Fitz had designed on an off day a few months before. He'd had a few questions in mind, that Melinda had known. He wanted to know what had happened with Garrett, he wanted to know what had been the situation in Wyoming. When he had emerged again, he had asked for privacy.

Five minutes ago, though, he had sent her, as well as Koenig, messages, asking them both to meet him in his office. It had been another few hours since they'd heard from him last, and, heading here, she hadn't been able to help wondering what he had learned. She hadn't been able to refrain from wondering if they were being summoned, as the most senior agents at the Playground, to help him with his decision on what to do with Ward.

Terminally.

Now, seeing the hope in his eyes, she felt strangely relieved. Much more relieved than she had initially expected she could be. The truth, however, was that, despite everything, given what she now knew, which was presumably nothing close to what Coulson now knew, she would not have felt entirely right putting Grant Ward down. She would still do it, if it was the conclusion that Coulson had come to, but she would not lie to herself and pretend that the whole thing wouldn't leave a bad taste in her mouth.

“It was a long talk,” Coulson started. May rolled her eyes, just slightly, taking her seat, and he smiled softly at her. That it was a long talk went without saying. “Not necessarily a good talk. But, it has made things much clearer.” His next words, spoken to Koenig, bolstered her curiosity and relief even more. “Could you please gather the team? This is really a conversation they should all be involved in.”

It didn't take long for them all to arrive. May suspected it hadn't been hard to find the three of them. Simmons would have been in Fitz's room. Trip had been sent to help her, and hadn't left at last check. Skye had designated herself as Jemma's personal cheer-up charm, and so was nearly attached to the biochemist's hip. Skye herself wasn't exactly a rainbow of good cheer, but, May thought, it helped her to focus on Simmons, and keeping her spirits up, rather than dwelling on the negatives.

Koenig offered his seat to Jemma, and she took it, a small device, wirelessly linked to the machines monitoring Fitz, cradled in her hands. She had been doing better in the last week. The pattern had kept up that Fitz would probably wake soon. The evidence had bolstered her, and given her an appetite again. Between the scientific data and Skye, Jemma was faring better than she had been when she first set herself on Ward. Skye, for her part, sat on the arm of the chair Koenig had given Jemma, and Triplett stood at Koenig's side. Everyone listening, everyone waiting for Coulson's words.

The new director cleared his throat, looking at them all in turn.

“You all know that I've been trying to piece together the riddle that Fury set me. It's been a few weeks, and I know that all of you have been downstairs. Some of you only once. Some of you many times. You all know that Ward is down there, and that he betrayed us. If you'd bothered to ask me, you know that I've been investigating his past, and his relationship with John Garrett.”

Lifting a hand, Phil rubbed his chin, then continued. “Ward has to be given the chance to become the man that he is. He cannot be left to rot forever, and he can't have stayed as Garrett's weapon, and Garrett's prize lapdog. Neither of those men are the one that I believe Grant Ward is.” Again, he paused to look at them all in turn. “I have significant reason to believe that the man we knew to be Grant Ward isn't as much of an act as we might have told ourselves he was. I'm deciding to give him a conditional second chance, based on the things I've learned. This intrudes on Grant's privacy, but I am going to have that folder accessible to all of you. You deserve the right to read through it, and understand the things that I came to understand. I have also uploaded his confession of the five years he spent in Garrett's company – which is putting it lightly – and that is entirely open to all of you as well.”

His fingers laced together on the desk top, and he paused a second. “Please, don't hold back on telling me your thoughts.”

Skye, unsurprisingly, was the first to speak, raising her hand as she did. “I understand that you've looked into things, AC, and I trust your judgment.” She paused for a second to take a slow breath. “Just, please, don't hold it against me if I take forever to deal with...” her hand sliced through the air in a vague gesture. “Whatever it is that Ward is supposed to be.”

At her side, Simmons nodded.

“That's entirely understandable,” Coulson said softly. “I'm not asking you to all welcome him back into the fold like nothing happened. I'm not asking you to forgive him. I am asking you to back my play to give him a conditional second chance, and see where things go from there.”

Skye and Jemma both nodded, as did Trip. “I'll back your play, sir. I'll do what you need me to, to help.” He crossed his arms. “To help Ward.”

Coulson nodded back to Trip, and then Koenig, before looking at May. Her mind was already made up before he had, and, she too, nodded.

“Thank you,” Coulson said. “For your cooperation, and your understanding. Within the next few weeks, we will--” he stopped short, cut off by a fast-paced, shrill, almost frantic beeping. His eyes, like the eyes of everyone in the room, were trained on the device in Simmons' hand. She slowly raised it, moving like she was drugged, and glanced at the screen, almost like she was afraid of what she would see.

Then she was up, and out of her seat, dashing out of the office, and down the hallway, Skye on her heels, Trip behind them both, her breathless whisper hanging in the room as May, Coulson and Koenig made to follow them.

“He's _awake.”_


	16. Epilogue

**Epilogue**

It's not like the food and meals had stopped coming, because they hadn't.

It's not like the visits had stopped, because they still happened.

Something had changed.

Ward could tell, even in his cell. Something was different about the air in the compound. Not only that, but the people who came to see him, whether they were the team, or the medical officers, were cagey. Cagey, but happy. It was strange, and it was the sort of change that told him that something major had happened. He wasn't above hoping that it had something to do with him finally, after fifteen years, coming clean about what happened in Wyoming, and his twisted relationship with Garrett.

Mostly, though, he was hoping, and maybe even praying, that it had to do with Fitz. He was sure it would be easy to find out the truth, if that were it, but he also thought that May would have told him when Fitz woke up. She still brings him books, and he was on to the final Harry Potter one now, but what she wasn't bringing him was news of Fitz.

Two days ago, Skye had been the one who brought his breakfast. She hadn't spoken, but she hadn't screamed at him either, nor had she looked at him with utter hate, and she hadn't thrown the food through the compartment at him. That night, Simmons had accompanied her to bring his dinner. She, too, didn't scream. She looked better than he'd seen her in weeks, though.

Grant was too scared to ask them, though, if Fitz was awake. If Fitz was alive.

It was nice that they were willing to come near him again, though. It was due to that, that when the hall door opened, and he didn't immediately hear the tap of Coulson's shoes on the concrete floor, he didn't get up. Neither, though, did he hear the dull thump of Trip's boots, the girls' light gaits, or the near-soundless whisper that meant it was May. That was what made him curious, and that was what got him up and off his cot, book pressed open between his fingers as he stepped towards the glass.

The book hit the floor a second later. Ward didn't find it in himself to care, because he hadn't noticed, staring at the morning's visitor.

Not Coulson, though he was there. Not May. Not Skye, but Simmons was standing just a bit back from the open door.

Fitz was making his way down the hallway, slowly, dressed in an oversized grey t-shirt, and baggy burgundy plaid pants that came down over his sock feet. For a second Ward felt annoyed that they were letting him walk around on the cold concrete floor, but, then he remembered; you didn't stop Leo Fitz from doing something he wanted to do. Even if he had to do it moving hesitant, and slow.

He looked so tired, even with his eyes cast down at the floor, and it made Ward's chest ache. Tired, and sore. His hair didn't have its natural tight curl, more, they were loose, and limp, and his cheeks and chin were dusted with a slight, blonde beard. And his arm was in a sling.

Grant had done this to him. He wanted to speak, to beg Fitz to forgive him, to explain how goddamn sorry he was for ever doing this to him. For doing this to the one person who had held faith in him, until the end.

But, he didn't speak, because he was afraid to scare him off.

Fitz was his first real, and true best friend. He was the first person who Ward had taken in as a best friend, a close friend. The first one that he had allowed himself to have that kind of relationship with.

Fitz had been the first person who had said that he was going to take care of Ward, and that he wasn't going to leave. And he hadn't. He'd tried so hard, pleading with Ward from behind that glass, all but saying, verbatim, that he needed Ward to let him take care of him. That he believed in him.

Seeing Fitz now, Ward found it hard to breathe. Looking at him, all he could hear was his own pulse, and his mouth had gone dry. Watching Fitz walk towards him, he realised that he had nearly made this simple thing impossible; he'd nearly killed the one person in the world who had still believed in him, and had wanted to take care of him.

Just like he'd promised in that warehouse in South Ossentia.

Fitz stopped in front of him, and for a second, Ward wondered how the engineer had known where he was standing. His eyes were still cast at the floor. In a second, though, Ward noticed how damn close to the glass he was. Fitz would have been able to see his feet. Jemma and Coulson, for their part, stayed back, at the door, and Ward was thankful.

He was thankful, because Fitz had finally looked up, and he wouldn't have been able to give them any attention anyway.

There were dark circles under his eyes, but they were bright, and alert. Bright, alert, and searching over Ward's face intently. Fitz was looking for something, and not speaking until, with hope, he'd found it. If Ward hadn't already been holding his breath, he would have begun. All he could do was keep still, and keep quiet.

All he wanted to do was say he was sorry. He was sorry, he apologised. Say that he had never wanted this, not ever. He had wanted Fitz to be safe, he had wanted them both to be safe.

While he waited for Fitz to speak, Coulson's words came back to him, sharp, and crisp, and sudden.

' _He may never be the same_.'

The memory of those words seized Ward's gut in an icy grip, tighter and tighter with every second that Fitz continued to look him over. Every second that Fitz looked for something that would, potentially, stop him from saying the words, 'I'm sorry, but I don't know you.'

And if Fitz didn't know his face, would he ever be able to apologise? If Fitz didn't know who he was, would he ever be able to make what he'd done right? To a man who didn't know he was the one who had led to him being in a coma, would his apologies and his penances mean anything?

Thoughts like that, Ward knew, would be the ones that threw this whole thing off. Instead, he took a breath, swallowed his terror, and waited. Waited for what Fitz would say.

Instead of speaking when he was finished looking Ward over, though, Fitz looked back down, lacing his fingers together, and, Ward hoped, contemplating. He spared a second to glance at the other two, but they gave nothing away. Coulson's face was all business, and Jemma's was a mask of too many emotions to be sure what they meant.

Looking back at Fitz was less tormenting, and Ward did, waiting for what felt like hours. Long, long hours, waiting for the verdict. In reality, it couldn't have been more than mere minutes, but the wait tortured him. If he lost his best friend...

Fitz took a breath, and Ward flinched, wound too tightly for even the slightest noise out of the other. Then those alert eyes looked at him again, lips parted slightly as Fitz searched Ward's eyes, again.

“I'm going to be the first to forgive you.”

The words hit him like a train, and Ward felt his breath punch out of him in a woosh, albeit a quiet one.

“Please,” Fitz continued, brows furrowing. “Please don't make me regret this, Grant.”

The changes those words brought on Ward were immediate, and light, then heavy, before settling in an encompassing feeling of _freedom_ that he hadn't realized he'd been craving until Fitz had forgiven him.

“I promise,” he muttered, quiet, but loud enough he knew Fitz would hear him. “You won't.”

Fitz nodded, and while he wasn't exactly smiling, there was something in his eyes. Something happy, Ward thought. The shorter man reached up, tapping the glass between them, licking his lips before speaking again. “And try to forgive yourself.” Then, he really did smile. Slight, and barely there, but he smiled. “Until you do, I'll keep believing in you enough for both of us.”

The break was a shock; more of one than the sense of freedom Ward had felt only seconds before. Still, it is hardly felt, compared to the weight of Fitz's forgiveness, but Ward still found it difficult to properly see, suddenly, his vision blurring, making him reach up to press the heels of his palms to his eyes.

There were multiple sayings in the world about the cleansing power of water. There were just as many sayings in high school counselors' handbooks about how crying is a good thing; tears are a necessary thing in order for human beings to achieve balance within themselves again, and move on with their lives.

So, Grant Ward handled his tears, quick and silent, and nodded to Fitz, and silently promised that, _this time_ , he was going to be the man that this team thought he was. _This time_ , he'd do it without the smokescreen.

For each of them, but also for him, it was about time he was Grant Ward.


End file.
